Survey and budgetary impact of anaesthesia machines failures

Objective. - To assess the incidence and the causes of failures of anaesthesia machines in relation to aging. Study design. - Prospective survey from January 1996 to July 2000. Material and methods. - The causes (mechanical or electronic), the moment of identification (checklist, maintenance operation or quality-control operation) of each anaesthetic machine failure, the repair cost and the maintenance cost of 14 anaesthetic machines have been collected and entered into a database. Results. - Over 31,948 anaesthesia delivered during the period of the study, 614 failures have been declared: 53% were related both to mechanical problems or monitoring failure and 40% were identified during the pre-operative checklist. In half of the cases, a specially trained anaesthetic nurse was able to correct the failure in the operating theatre. The annual rate of anaesthetic machine failure remained stable over the study period and the annual maintenance cost is approximately 10% of the initial machine value. No procedure was cancelled because of a machine technical failure. Conclusion. - Anaesthetic machine failure rate change according to the time should not be criteria for replacement if rigorous quality control and maintenance operation are used. (C) 2003 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. Tons droits reserves.