And traditional hospitals are just one type of facility where patients need IV therapy, and the pumps that regulate it. Other organizations include short-term specialty hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes, hospices, home infusion companies, and institutions such as prison hospitals or college infirmaries.

The more acute the care, the more acute the need for pumps. Many patients are hooked up to more than one infusion pump. So it's important to note another growing type of healthcare organization: the Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals (LTACHs). These facilities specialize in long-term ICU, such as for patients on ventilators, with intractable wound care issues, or trauma patients that have graduated from the hospital ICU but aren't ready to go home. These organizations are flourishing, particularly in the Southwest and Southeast.


"A hospital is between fish and fowl. They have very high intensity, high acuity beds or they have a step-down to a floor. They don't have anything in between," explains B. Braun's Melanson. "We see growth in the purchase of infusion pumps
in the long-term acute care facility marketplace because the patients are requiring that kind of therapy."

Another relevant provider model is outpatient infusion therapy centers that focus on antibiotic or chemotherapy delivery. Like LTACHs, these are sprouting up because of favorable Medicare reimbursement policies.

Also affecting IV pump use is the growing priority of patient satisfaction, as hospitals strive for high ratings in quality assessments and rankings. Since pain management is a key to patient satisfaction, the industry is seeing a growth spurt in patient-controlled analgesia devices (PCAs), one type of medical pump on the market. (The other big categories of devices are the volumetric pump for infusing large bags of fluids and medication, the syringe pump for many specialized applications, and enteral feeding pumps.)

Staffing shortages also have an influence on the market since safer, more easy-to-use devices lend themselves to a high turnover work environment. As noted, the growth in popularity of wireless networks also supports new pump adoption because the smart devices are best updated through a hospital wide
network.

Underlying all medical technology use, and in particular the infusion of medication, is the risk of error, the need to prevent it, government crackdown on reimbursing for errors (although so far medication errors are not on Medicare's "never-event" list of things it won't pay for), and the need for risk reduction to prevent lawsuits.

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