Drug pump systems and methods
A menu driven reprogrammable drug pump is provided with a memory, such as flash memory, a display, a keyboard, and a communications port to allow a generic pump to be programmed with a desired pump application (therapy) program and patient specific settings. Programming and data transfer with another pump or a computer to and from the patient pump is by the communications port that allows local and/or remote communications with the pump. Flash memory stores the pump application program during use. Patient safety is provided by a cassette identification system, an occlusion detection system, and a latch/lock detection system. Automated testing of the pump is by a closed loop testing system.
1 . A medical infusion pump, comprising:
a pump mechanism;
a programmable circuit arranged to control operation of the pump mechanism; and
flash memory in electrical communication with the programmable circuit.
2 . The medical infusion pump of claim 1 , wherein the flash memory stores a program for controlling operation of the pump mechanism.
3 . The medical infusion pump of claim 1 , wherein the flash memory stores pump parameters for defining operation of the pump mechanism.
4 . The medical infusion pump of claim 1 , wherein data is stored in blocks of data.
5 . A method of programming a medical infusion pump having a pump mechanism, a programmable circuit, flash memory, and a data port, the method comprising:
transferring data through the data port; and
storing the data in the flash memory.
6 . The method of claim 5 wherein the data comprises a pump parameter.
7 . The method of claim 5 wherein the data comprises a pump program.
8 . The method of claim 5 wherein storing the data in the flash memory comprises storing the data in blocks of data.
9 . The method of claim 5 further comprising storing the data in transient memory before storing the data in the flash memory and the act of storing the data in the flash memory comprises transferring the data from the transient memory to the flash memory.