ENFit transition for enteral management in an acute care setting (26 March 2025)

Summary

Change is hard, but it can be even more challenging for a large hospital or healthcare system to switch from a traditional and familiar medical device to a new one, throughout the entire organisation. A 525-bed Level I trauma facility in south-central Pennsylvania recently took on the major task of updating their stock of feeding tube connectors to the ENFit system, the current industry standard for enteral devices.

Continuing to use old “legacy” feeding tubes with adaptors to connect with the new system raised the risk of errors in which medication can be delivered to patients through the wrong route—for example, giving oral medications in a syringe meant for an enteral tube and subsequently given through an intravenous port. To prevent enteral device–related patient safety events, this facility committed to transitioning to using only ENFit tubes for feeding or medication.

Content

A multidisciplinary team used the Plan, Do, Check, Act model to observe how enteral devices were being used, develop and implement changes, review outcomes, and iterate on the process to make improvements.

Keys to their success included working closely with vendors and Material Management, educating clinical staff on the importance of preventing misconnections with other bodily system devices and familiarizing them with the new products, updating policies and guides, maintaining clear communication about what was changing and when, and emphasizing the reporting of safety events.

This collaborative approach resulted in 100% compliance with ENFit enteral device management, compared to 40% ENFit compatibility before the quality improvement initiative.