EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management BP Monitor Evaluation

We are drawing together the various elements of an evaluation of BP monitors, and I would very much like to hear any views, comments, experiences on the following devices;

GE Medical (Critikon) ProCare 300/400
Welch Allyn SPOT
Omron 907

I am particularly interested in hearing about aspects of UK technical support, such as;

Telephone support,
Spares availability & cost,
tech documentation,
training (tech & user - both availability & quality).

Does anyone have anything that they would be willing to share, either on the devices, the companies, or both?

Many thanks

Paul Horn

We don't have any of the GE Pro Care units and only a few of the very old Critikon units.

The Welch Allyn Spot units are excellent. They're not entirely trouble free, but are fairly easy to sort out and the support from Welch Allyn is very good. We've had several instances of the mains lead failing just where it enters the power supply - the "strain relief" is too rigid to provide much relief ! - and on a couple of occasions the failure has been quite spectacular and frightened several nurses - a big bang and lots of smoke !

The Omron units are cheap and cheerful and surprisingly accurate. One of the models has been approved by the Hypertension Society and the comparative tests we did showed they were just as accurate as the Dynamaps. You can't buy them direct from Omron any more, but you can arrange for Omron to provide the technical support and carry out all repairs. They do a fixed price repair which is very good value and the service is quick. At around £90 they can be treated as a throw-away item if they get dropped (and let's face it, what doesn't get dropped ) but Omron will have a go at repairing almost anything - even if you send the bits back in a plastic bag ! !

The biggest expense is the cuffs - but the Omron ones used to be very good value (£12 per cuff, any size ?) and Henleys have just brought out a range of "disposable" cuffs which are a similar price and seem very good. You have to be careful to get the right size of cuff though, as we found that using a cuff which was too small significantly affected the readings.

Roy
We had 12 (battery) omron units in our labour ward, and had them in the workshop on a regular basis with reported inaccurate readings.

We found the problem to be assosiated with patient movement. In the end we got rid of them and replaced them with the welch allyn monitors, which are well liked.

I think the cheap battery operated units are fine for community nursing, but we won't have them on the general wards after our problems in Labour.

Also, could there be some false economy considering the amount of batteries that would be in the lifetime of the device?

We have been a solid Critikon user for many years and would have been happy to recommend them both in terms of accuracy, reliability and tech support - but no longer.

We have a few of the new Pro 300's and they have not had a happy start. Weak moulding have caused the cases to break when the pole clamp is tightened too far and they have just had a safety note out on the security of the mains inlet connector.

Service and spare parts turnround have frankly gone down the pan which considering the price for the monitor is now making it a questionable purchase.

I'll be very interested in the results of the survey.