Paediatric hospitals making mealtime safer for children, youth fed through a tube

Ontario’s specialty paediatric hospitals are standardizing the type of feeding tube equipment they use for children and youth, making the administration of nutrition and medications safer. Hospitals with the Children’s Health Coalition will all be using ENFit feeding tube connectors by winter 2023. The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) will transition on March 6, 2023.

ENFit, a global patient-safety initiative, makes mealtime and medication administration by tube as safe as possible by reducing the risk of misconnection and leakage. ENFit feeding tube connectors are designed so they cannot inadvertently connect to other delivery systems, such as trach tubes, IV lines and catheters. It also uses a twist-in connection rather than a friction-held legacy connector.

This design comes with enhanced cleaning practices to prevent the buildup or residue from feeds or liquid medications. The ENFit system also comes with specific medication accessories to ensure best dose accuracy of medications.

Ontario’s paediatric specialty hospitals are working together with community agencies and children’s treatment centres to ensure a smooth and safe transition to ENFit for patients and families.

The Children’s Health Coalition encourages all health-care institutions that use feeding tube connectors to adopt the ENFit system, to ensure kids remain as safe and healthy as they can while in care.

To learn more, visit this ENFit FAQ (PDF) featuring some of the most common questions asked by patients and families.

For additional information on preparing and administering medications using ENFit, visit the AboutKidsHealth YouTube channel and stayconnected.org.