A prospective study on anesthesia machine fault identification.
BACKGROUND
Although few studies have been performed recently, several have suggested that some practitioners are not well able to detect preset anesthesia machine faults.


METHODS
We performed a prospective study to determine whether there is a correlation between duration of anesthesia practice and the ability to detect anesthesia machine faults. Our hypothesis was that more anesthesia practice would increase the ability to detect anesthesia machine faults. This study was performed during a nationally attended anesthesia meeting held at a large academic medical center, where 87 anesthesia providers were observed performing anesthesia machine checkouts. The participants were asked to individually check out an anesthesia machine with an unspecified number of preset faults. The primary outcome measures were the written listing of faults detected during an anesthesia machine checkout.


RESULTS
Of the five faults preset into the test machine, participants with 0-2 yr experience detected a mean of 3.7 faults, participants with 2-7 yr experience detected a mean of 3.6 faults, and participants with more than 7 yr experience detected a mean of 2.3 faults (P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Our prospective study demonstrated that anesthesia machine checkout continues to be a problem.
Larson
Eric R
ER
Department of Anesthesiology, Mayo College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Nuttall
Gregory A
GA
Ogren
Brian D
BD
Severson
Dean D
DD
Wood
Sarah A
SA
Torsher
Laurence C
LC
Oliver
William C
WC
Marienau
Mary E Shirk
ME
D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results