Advancing Patient Safety
Stay Connected is the initiative created by the Global Engineered Device Supplier Association (GEDSA) to coordinate the Global implementation of safer small-bore medical tubing connectors. These connectors were developed through the ISO 80369 series of standards. These standards dedicate unique tubing connectors for each bodily system so that the connectors for different bodily systems are mechanically incompatible with one another and therefore they reduce the risks of a misconnection, where medical tubing inadvertently connects one bodily system to another.
One example of this would be an enteral feed being connected with an IV line, which would result in nutrition being infused into the vascular system. This of course would cause serious harm and potentially death. GEDSA’s mission and the Stay Connected initiative aim to prevent these types of errors from happening.
The ISO Connection Standard to prevent tubing misconnection.
ISO standard 80369 was established to prevent tubing misconnection.
Stay Connected is a patient safety initiative driven by the Global Engineered Device Supplier Association (GEDSA), a nonprofit 501(c)(6) trade association formed to establish a voice for addressing issues that face device manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors, and to help introduce international patient safety standards for healthcare tubing connectors.