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Evaluation of the user-friendliness of 11 home mechanical ventilators

¹ Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Service de Pneumologie et de Réanimation, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, ² Université Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie, Unité Propre de Recherche de l'Enseignement Supérieure EA 2397, Paris, and ³ Centre d'Assistance Respiratoire à Domicile d'Ile-de-France, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France.

CORRESPONDENCE: T. Similowski, Service de Pneumologie et de Réanimation, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, 47-83, Bd de l'Hôpital, 75651 Paris Cedex 13, France, Fax: 33 142176843. E-mail: thomas.similowski{at}psl.ap-hop-paris.fr

Keywords: Home care, international standardisation office, mechanical ventilation, ventilators

Received: July 6, 2005
Accepted February 2, 2006

The home ventilator market has grown in size and complexity. The aim of this study was to determine if common home ventilators are user-friendly for trained intensive care unit (ICU) physicians.

Eleven ventilator models were tested by 13 ICU physicians without practical experience in home mechanical ventilation. Six tests were defined (start-up, unlocking, mode and setting recognition, mode change, pressure setting and alarm). For each test, the physicians were timed and their performance compared with a reference time established by a technician. The physicians also had to rate their global assessment of each machine on a visual analogue scale.

The start-up test was the only test for which there was no significant difference between the physicians and the technician, except for two ventilators. The physicians were slower than the technician to unlock the ventilator and change the ventilatory mode, with some complete failures during these tests and heterogeneous results between physicians and between ventilators. Mistakes occurred in close to 50% of cases during the ventilatory mode and settings recognition test. The mean time for the most rapid of the physicians for all the tests was 58±53 s, compared with 15±9 s for the technician.

In conclusion, trained intensive care unit physicians perform poorly when confronted with home mechanical ventilators without specific prior training. Therefore, it is hypothesised that the user-friendliness of home ventilators for other categories of users might be questionable.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				A. C. White, H. H. O'Connor, and K. Kirby Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation: Review of Care Settings and an Update on Professional Reimbursement Chest, February 1, 2008; 133(2): 539 - 545. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]