Hello Everyone,

We are currently in the process of evaluating Penlon Prima SP102 anesthesia machine.

Would like to have your response in regards Prima SP102's performance, reliability, quality, service, issue etc.

Look forward to hearing from you people soon.

Thanks
Tim

Hi Tim,

I maintain a fleet of 24 a/machines, mostly Prima SP, and a couple of SP 2. I think the SP102 is basically a Prima SP with an A200SP Absorber, & AV S Vent.

I find Penlon machines OK, we don't have much trouble with them to be honest, they are reliable the only thing I would say is they are pretty intensive in terms of servicing time, and the service kit / Parts prices are crippling if you have a lot of machines. The servicing of the Prima is straight forward to be honest. However the servicing of the A200 SP Absorber is pretty fiddly, as is the AV S Vent. There is a very time intensive post service calibration procedure on the AV S, and you should make certain that you attend the Penlon course otherwise you will struggle!
We have recently moved away from Penlon to GE Avance and to give you some idea the 12 month on the Avance costs around £15 at the most, on the Penlon it will be more in the region of £300, which is a lot to pay for a bag full of "O" rings! - when you get to the bigger services it is the same story. Same with time really, the GE having an annual service only taking around 3-6 hours at the most, but Penlon having a 6 monthly visit, the annual requiring a good 2 days at least to service all 3 items and check them properly.

But I have to say in terms of performance they are fine. We recently had an issue with some questions over Spirometry readings on the Primas, and out of interest I stuck my wrights gauge on the Prima SP with AV 900 Vent, and Avance, both these machines when set at VT set 600, 10 BPM, i:e 1/2.0 at basal flow returned readings of around 530 -540 VT Meas, the Prima with the AV S Vent returned a reading 0f 600 VT Meas. I put this down to the fact that you have so much control over the spiro trims on the post service calibration, you can adjust it so finely, which proves though it may be fiddly, it certainly works.

Also there are a few issues with Penlon service kits. Considering the pricing of them, and they are not cheap for what you get, you would expect everything you need to be in the kit. Take the 60 Month on the A100SP absorber. in order to service the bag/vent, & abs on/off switch properly you need 6 041204 'O' Rings, but only 4 are in the Kit, I have spoke to Penlon about this countless times, but the kits still come incomplete and it is little things like this that let them down in my opinion.

The only ongoing issue I have had with the A200 Abs is the soda lime cannisters crack because of the cam lock mechanism, and the ham fisted users, they are only about £20 or so though, but still it is annoying to have to keep buying these.

Failing that apart from been careful to disconnect the DVI cable correctly if and when you remove the remote screen, as incorrect disconnection blows the TX board, costing about £130, there are not too many pitfalls.

In summary good machine, I like Penlon, & I find them good to deal with these days, but compared certainly to GE they are very expensive to service in terms of time & money.

Hope this helps. If you want any more info contact feel free to contact me.

Regards.

Mick.

Good Morning Mick,
I appreciate your detailed response and thank you for that. The information you provided is very valuable and will come in handy when we evaluate Pnelon's Prima SP2/3. we are currently resolving the issue of the interfacing between the machine and the EMR. Capsule tech at the moment does not have the DDI (data device interface) driver for the Prima models.

By the way we will be Evaluating GE Aisys anesthesia machine this coming 2 weeks. We just received the demo machine last week and now I am setting up the integration of the EMR workstation.

Which GE machines are you currently have in stock? how has your experience been with these machines? What issues have you had?

Thank you again for your reply and looking forward to your suggestions and advice.

Sinerely,
Tim

Hi Tim,

We Originally went to trial with 3 Machines, Spacelabs, Drager Primus, and GE S/5 Avance.
We settled on the GE Avance, though I have to be honest and say it wasn't our first choice in EBME.
The Avance has proved to be a good machine, very reliable, fairly easy to maintain etc. In the 2 years we have had ours we had very few teething problems, if any worth mentioning. We had a Mixer assy fail in the early days, but it was a one off and have had no real breakdowns to speak of since.
We have just brought 3 more, the only problem is in the last 2 years the software revision has been elevated from 6 to 8, so we now have to obtain yet another CF Card with the software on to be able to service the machines, and upgrade the existing one, which is around £150 I believe. Add to that I need to change the monitor bezels on our existing machines to bring them to the same spec as the version 8 we have just brought, which is a pain to be honest. Having has a play with a version 8 today, I cant say I am ever so impressed with the so called improvements personally.
From our perspective there wasn't really much in the Drager Primus, and the S/5 Avance as regards capability, but we would have preferred the Drager as the company are so good to deal with, but that is academic.
Our problem was the people in the mix were more interested in buying a machine based upon what it could do, rather than asking what we wanted it to do and then basing the decision on that, which is the wrong way to approach the issue in a cash strapped NHS in my opinion. Had we done so we may well have brought the GE S/5 Aespire, a slightly lower spec machine, but equally capable. We would have got more machines for our money. I was reliably informed after by an employee of GE that the Aespire has the same Ventilator Modules on it the the Avance has, and we supposedly brought it because of the vent modes - which have probably never and likely will never be used - in short we brought a very expensive, very high spec, very good machine and will possibly utilise maybe 60% of its capability. In a Health service strapped for cash some one should really have a kick up the backside for this waste! Probably for yourselves funding will not be such an issue!
I have never really had a look at the Aisys, but if it is as reliable as the S/5 Avance I don't think you should have too much trouble.
In short had I made the choice, it would have been based on what we needed the machine to do, and the Penlon SP2 would have been more than adequate, and significantly cheaper in terms of initial outlay, but over the life this may be balanced out by the expensive service kits of the Penlon!
Have you considered the Spacelabs/Blease Machines, not as technologically advanced as GE or Drager, but they would certainly give Penlon a run for their money!

It will be interesting to see how you get on in the end Tim, Keep in touch & let us know.

Kind Regards.

Mick.

Hello Mick,
Apologies for the delayed response, I have been trying to setup evaluations with various vendors.

The GE Datex-Ohmeda rep in our region is a nice fella and has been working in our regions for years. He brought the GE Datex-Ohmeda Aisys for demo purposes. But since we were going to use the Phillips IntelliVue MP70 or InrelliVue MX800 the adatper bracket on the articulating arm would not fit the Phillips IntelliVue monitors. As you already know that Phillips IntelliVue monitors have a unique adapter to post on.

So while the system was in our facility I thought I'd just go through with the anesthesia techs to do an initial review about the GE Aisys Anesthesia unit. For our criterion GE Aisys would be used in our main Operating rooms. The smaller foot print Avance would be utilized for off site cases i.e. Radiology, IR and Radiation Oncology.

Here are some of my views about the GE Aisys unit.

1. The size and weight was heavy and moving the system around was not easy. At times I had to struggle to maneuver the system around.

2. The GE rep was receptive and would actively listen to our needs and requirements.

3. The integrated etCO2 module was a nice feature but would cost about $7K as this was an optional feature. Though we would be using the IntelliVue G5 (gas analyzer) instead.
4. EMR/Device Data integration was forward and back compatible with our AIMS (Anesthesia Information Management System) via the Serial Port (Rs232 protocol) and LAN port using the Vue Link Gateway. Plus Capsule was able to provide the DDI drivers as well.
However the IHE standard for the PCD profile (Patient Care Device) has not been implemented yet but GE is looking into it.

5. The cost of the machine alone was around $65K.

6. Vaporizer cassettes were small as compared to what we have on our Aestiva/5. This would require multiple fillings of the cassettes. Plus they do not have any physical dials or numerics indicating how much of the anesthesia was being utilized. Not easy to read, a more digital bar display which did not make sense to a lot of people.

7. Drawers were ample and there were enough power outlets on the back to connected additional devices and instruments. Additional side bracket was available to attached a EMR workstation. However we wanted to have table top articulating arm. The reason that we have limited space so placing the articulating folding keyboard arm on the top would save us space and avoid less damage to the workstation during transportation.

We have limited budget therefore the dept has to do a thorough due diligence in evaluating all the vendors. I will ask the GE rep if he can bring in the GE S/5 Aespire or the S/5 Avance. I think this has only 2 vaporizers where as the Aisys accommodates 3 of them.

Drager will be showing off their Apollo unit for eval purposes, they are currently making sure they have the unit available for evaluation.

Phillips will be launching its new Anesthia Unit next year which was owned by DEMECA. We might evaluate those as well since most of the equipment we have is Phillips based.

Mindray A5 has great features unfortunately the EMR/Data interface with the RS232 capability has been an issue. They hope to resolve this issue by the end of the 2012. However they are IHE compliant and forward compatible right now.The can be easily integrate with iMDSOFT and CERNER.

By the way do you have an evaluation checklist or sheet in excel or word, it would really be handy for eval purposes.

Its taking more time than I expected for these evals to proceed. Main concern has been the EMR/Data interface integration and long term costs.

Thank you again for all your suggestions and input. It really means a lot to me...

best regards
Tim

Hi Tim,

Just wondedring if you are any further ahead yet?

Regards Mick.