Journal of clinical monitoring and computing
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J Clin Monit Comput · Apr 2010
Validation of arterial blood pressures observed from the patient monitor; a tool for prehospital research.
For some time, the inaccuracies of non-invasive blood pressure measurement in critically ill patients have been recognised. Measurement difficulties can occur even in optimal conditions, but in prehospital transportation vehicles, problems are exacerbated. Intra-arterial pressures must be used as the reference against which to compare the performance of non-invasive methods in the critically ill patient population. Intra-arterial manometer data observed from the patient monitor has frequently been used as the reference against which to assess the accuracy of noninvasive devices in the emergency setting. To test this method's validity, this study aimed to determine whether numerical monitor pressures can be considered interchangeable with independently sampled intra-arterial pressures. ⋯ Integrated mean arterial pressures observed from a well maintained patient monitor can be considered interchangeable with independently sampled intra-arterial pressures and may be confidently used as the reference against which to test the accuracy of non-invasive blood pressure measuring methods in the prehospital or emergency setting.
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J Clin Monit Comput · Apr 2010
Case ReportsLeak in the breathing circuit: CO2 absorber and human error.
A couple of reports in literature have mentioned CO2 absorbers to be the cause for breathing circuit leak during anesthesia. Defective canister, failure to close the absorber chamber and overfilling of the chamber with sodalime were the problems in these reports. Among these, the last two are reports of human error resulting in problems. We report a case where despite taking precautions in this regard, we experienced a significant leak in the system due to a problem with the CO2 absorber, secondary to human error.