title: A prospective study on anesthesia machine fault identification.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Mayo College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
authors.forename: Eric R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Gregory A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Nuttall
authors.forename: Brian D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Ogren
authors.forename: Dean D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Severson
authors.forename: Sarah A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: Laurence C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Torsher
authors.forename: William C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.forename: Mary E Shirk
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Marienau
mesh_terms: D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results