title: Medical gas safety. Read the labels! They're the only sure identifier of gas cylinder contents.
abstract: Mixing up different types of medical and device gases can have damaging and even deadly consequences. Therefore, it's vital that hospital staff members understand that only the label on a gas cylinder is a reliable indicator of its contents. Any other indicators--such as the type of connector on the cylinder, or the color the cylinder is painted--could be misleading, since the standards covering these indicators sometimes overlap and may be poorly understood. This article discusses how and why the wrong indicators might lead an unsuspecting staff member to use an inappropriate type of gas, and how hospitals can minimize the odds of this happening.
mesh_terms: D000056:Accident Prevention; D004865:Equipment and Supplies, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D005740:Gases; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D011356:Product Labeling; D012449:Safety
chemical_list: D005740:Gases