The impact of calibration on medical devices performance and patient safety

Abstract

Hospitals and health care providers are striving to reduce health care cost without compromising the quality of health care and appropriate medical diagnosis. They are becoming more aware of the importance of medical devices calibration in their health care facilities, and the impact it has on both the quality of health services provided to the patients, and patient's safety. Healthcare providers are beginning to realize that the maintenance of medical devices alone, without assuring proper calibration, may not be sufficient enough to ensure proper function, adequate and reliable measurements. Accurate and reliable measurements are crucial for appropriate medical decisions. On the contrary, un-calibrated medical devices may lead to imprecise measurements. These measurements will have a significant negative impact on the quality of the healthcare provided to patients and might increase the healthcare cost by subjecting patients to excessive medical treatment. The study was conducted on a representative sample of 20.5% from total asset (1034) of high risk medical devices representing 6 devices categories. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of calibration of medical devices on performance and patient's safety by investigating devices performance against international standard reference or manufacturer recommendations. 34% of the sample failed the visual test, 5% failed the safety test, and 58% failed the performance test. However, it is important to note that there was no death or serious incidents associated with these devices. In conclusion, these devices do not meet the international standard and continued use of such devices can compromise patient's safety.

Predicting medical device failure: a promise to reduce healthcare facilities cost through smart healthcare management

“…Calibration is a task to verify the accuracy, and an electrical safety test is performed to ensure the patient is not at risk of electrical injury or leakage. According to the results of an investigation test conducted on six high-risk medical devices, 58% of the devices failed the performance test, which is greater than prior studies, which found that 21% and 26% of the devices failed the performance test, respectively ( Altayyar et al, 2018 ). Furthermore, when measured in healthcare facilities, around 9% of infusion pumps and 12.6% of dialysis machines fail to meet electrical safety regulations ( Gurbeta Pokvic et al, 2017a , 2017b ).…”

EFFECT OF MAGNETIC WATER ON SOME ACTIVITIES OF HONEY BEES (Apis mellifera L.) in Jazan Province KSA

“…According to a study done on rats, the pancreatic exocrine and endocrine systems can be shielded against the adverse effects of type 2 diabetes by the use of magnetic water (Saleh et al 2018). According to Higa (2004), a magnetic field gives water molecules a remarkable capacity to avoid oxidation, enhancing the benefits of water for health and boosting the body's resistance.…”

Design and Build a Ventalitor Tester With PIP and PIF Waveform Displays As Validation (PIP)

“…As a result, Pplat can never be more than the peak inspiratory pressure (PIP), because there will always be an intrinsic resistance that the resistance P must overcome. In mechanical ventilation, this number reflects the positive pressure in centimeters of water pressure (cm H2O) [9] [10]. The normal peak inspiratory pressure (PIP) is 25-30 cm H2O.…”

“…In the current situation where checking the ventilator is very important because there are emergency conditions for using and testing the ventilator, the ventilator tester is very often used. Checks are carried out to ensure the output of the ventilator is in accordance with the settings made by the nurse on the ventilator, this check is also known as with calibration [10] [11], calibration is carried out using special tools that have been tested by the manufacturer to ensure the calibration tool has high accuracy and precision so that it can be used to determine the feasibility of a medical device to be used on patients [12], this calibration activity it is very important to do especially on tools that are often used so that the use of tools that should be a support for patients does not become a boomerang that worsens the patient's condition. And in the current condition where calibration tools are needed to support checking medical devices, especially calibration tools for ventilators [13] [14], where in the last few years they are very often used, but the lack of calibration tools to check ventilators is an obstacle that is of concern, so several studies has been done to make an emergency ventilator calibration tool with the aim of making an emergency calibration tool to check the ventilator output.…”