How To Ensure Safe Enteral Connections

Every medical facility regardless of its size needs to be equipped well so that the risks to lives of the patients can be avoided. However, the medical professionals take care to provide proper nutrition for a patient suffering from serious medical conditions. Having the required nutrients within the body goes a long way in facilitating the healing process and recovery. Sadly, there are a number of patients who are unable to eat and need to be fed by other means. This happens to be common complaint in the neonatal unit that houses preterm infants who are too weak or under developed to breastfeed.

Tube feeding is a recognized alternative for administering the nutrients directly into the GI tract. This works well for both children as well as adults perfectly and is considered to be the least invasive procedure. However, the procedure requires the use of multiple equipment especially tubes and connectors. The FDA has recently come up with a number of regulations for ensuring safe enteral connections in order to minimize risking the patients’ lives.

While the specialists and medical professionals get to be blamed for mishaps, the nursing community as well as other staff members working in a facility can commit a fatal mistake inadvertently as well. The results can be fatal when the tubes are mixed up with instances of neonates being fed with urine being reported regularly. The FDA has been particularly concerned about this and has come up with a standardization that removes the possibility of misconception completely. Almost all the medical units and facilities concerned with enteral feeding have advised to migrate to ENFit, the trademark used for connectors that are comply with ISO 80369-3.

ENFit is not only about the tubes used for feeding though. On the contrary, the facility needs to source a number of equipment including but not limited to syringes, G & NG tubes, extension sets, J Tubes, PEGs and administration sets bearing the ENFit mark. The standardized accessories or equipment are not dependent on the manufacturer though. It is the unique design that has proved to be highly efficient in reducing the risks during feeding the patient through the enteral route.

Advantages of using ENFit devices

• The nutritive fluid flows in a single direction specifically from the female to the male end


• The devices are totally compliant with patient safety directives of the FDA


• The possibility of misconnection is reduced drastically


• The connections remain secure and locked in thereby preventing sudden disruption of the connection

The medical facilities from big hospitals to tiny clinics have welcomed the move as it ensures complete patient safety during enteral feeding. However, progress has been slow due to insufficient knowledge about the design and its efficacy. However, it definitely absolves the nursing staff and other caregivers of their responsibility as it is now impossible to fit a different device into the enteral feeding system due to difference in designs.