Patent ID: 8025634

Claim:
A system for administering a substance to a subject, said system comprising: a pump including a housing; a controller that is in communication with the pump and issues control signals to the pump; a user interface external to the pump housing and configured to present queries to the subject regarding whether the subject may be experiencing an adverse reaction to the substance and to receive responses to the queries; a plurality of vital signs monitors; a substance administering conduit for delivering the substance to the subject's body; a storage medium that contains at least one controller-accessible database selected from the group of databases consisting of: a) a substance protocol database, b) a subject protocol database, c) a therapy-type protocol database, d) a substance reference library database, e) a system configuration database, f) a history database and g) combinations thereof, and wherein the controller is programmed to operate with the user interface and the plurality of vital sign monitors to: (i) receive at least one vital sign signal from the plurality of vital sign monitors, (ii) determine, in response to the receipt of the vital sign signal, whether the subject may be experiencing an adverse reaction to the substance, (iii) cause the user interface to present at least one of said queries to the subject when the determination in response to (ii) is that the subject may be experiencing an adverse reaction to the substance, and (iv) monitor a response by the subject to the at least one presented query to determine whether the subject is suffering an adverse reaction to the substance.