title: Assessment of Hitachi HME-20 pulse and blood-pressure monitor.
abstract: The performance of the Hitachi HME-20 pulse and blood-pressure (BP) monitor in comparison with direct intra-arterial BP recording and electrocardiographic monitoring is described. Highly significant (p less than 0.001) correlations were found between intra-arterial systolic and diastolic pressures and pressures recorded by the Hitachi monitor. Similarly, the electrocardiographically computed heart-rate, and that given by the Hitachi monitor were significantly correlated (p less than 0.001). Systolic blood-pressure was underestimated by a mean of -12 mmHg and tended to become more erroneous when intra-arterial pressure was greater than 150 mmHg. These results are comparable to more expensive pulse and blood-pressure monitors. We conclude that the instrument can reproduce a satisfactory estimate of heart-rate and blood-pressure and may be of particular use when a change of blood-pressure is of prime importance, rather than an absolute measurement.
mesh_terms: D001795:Blood Pressure Determination / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011674:Pulse