EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Baxter Colleague Volumetric Infusion pumps

Colleagues are still crap.

They are overly complex, fiddly to repair, they allow fluid ingress at every joint, physically big and heavy. Even something as routine as battery changing needs extreme care and have dodgy display drivers.

This is nearly 2003, pumps should have evolved into very simple devices in terms of maintenance and use. I thought we were almost there with the Danby DCR even with all its faults.

Prolific IV devices of this nature should be much simpler, extremely robust, practically immersible, physically smaller, with due consideration given to the environment that they are used in. The Colleague doesn't cut it any of these ways. :p

Dear oh dear - the used car brigade strike again, whats with people who relate to cars?

Surely we are above this level of technical expertise? Maybe it's all that sand in Southport, it's got between Dave's ears! Or somewere else!

And yes there are some good,in fact very good,IV pumps to be had, ie. the Graseby 500, very accurate, consistent,good size, nice and easy to use. What a pump!

BUT, unfortunately uses a dedicated giving set, which, in this cost saving age by people who havn't a clue or even care about accuracy, is not bought other than for specialist use.

Any one got a lot of these?

Danby must be fuming, he had it almost right, but money will buy any one out!

Ian-C

Oh yes - missed out the air pump we use, it's a 1000 cfm pump, makes a lot of noise but does the job nicely, just stand out of the way.

When this one isn't working we use our liitle bog standard fish tank air pump. putt putt putt, etc.

No good for use on cars though!

Ian-C

No escaping that one!

Cars and bioengineers go hand in hand. After all we all fix our own don't we?

For a different slant, the Colleague maybe described as the SA8O of pumps, whereas we really need an AK47!

I would have said more of a "blunderbuss" than a SA80 for the Colleague

Fraid I don't fix me own car, maybe I shouldn't admit to owning one as maybe this is a "Green" issue with Ian

Is the objection to the analagy to do with cars or the apparent slight on the IDA

Your right Ian sand does get everywhere, maybe I can borrow your little "phut phut" pump to blow it out.

If you referred to your "procedure" with the IDA as the " Analyser Service Solution" you could then quite legitamately say you were "..blowing it out of your A.S.S."

This gets more interesting one of our technicians was on a Colleague training course at Baxter H.C on Wednesday,on a visit to the service dept he was surprised to find a Colleague pump on the test bench infusing in to a none other than a IDA4+ (were does this leave us as Baxter say we should not use IDA4 but they use them also)

Graham, maybe you guys should report this to the MDA as they are using test equipment which they do not recommend. What kind of quality system are they using?

We use both the Avery and IDA2 methods without too much hassle as long as you replace the set on a regular basis.

WRT the Battery problems Baxter worlwide have been upgrading to the dual battery system under pain of death from the FDA but they dont seem to have the same pressure placed upon them by the MDA. Whats new you say!! However they wiil upgrade older pumps if you ask nicely!!!

Nurses luv em tell em once you tell em a zillion times.

Its nice to see that this topic generated some interest. Even if we did stray onto car mechanics and sand-blowing-pumps eh !

Chris-H

I HAVE TODAY RECEIVED A LETTER FROM BAXTER REGARDING THE TESTING OF THE COLLEAGUE PUMP
THE INFORMATION GIVEN IS THAT THERE ARE LIMITATIONS TO THE IDA TESTER DUE TO THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE SHUTTLE MOTOR AND THAT TESTING OF COLLEAGE PUMP SHOULD BE DONE BY USING BALANCE SCALES WHICH ARE CALIBRATED TO A TOLERANCE OF 0.004gm UP TO A MAX WEIGHT OF 500gm (E2 CLASSIFICATION
THE LETTER ALSO STATES THAT THE IDA HAS NOT BEEN EVALUATED IN THE UK OR ANY OTHER COUNTRY THERE FOR THE DATA PROVIDED CAN ONLY BE USED AS A GUIDE
IF ANY ONE WOULD LIKE A COPY OF THIS PLEASE CONTACT ME AND I WILL ARRANGE TO FAX