Medical instrumentation
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Medical instrumentation · May 1984
Nuclear magnetic resonance: the state of the art from the clinical engineer's viewpoint.
Clinical engineers must understand the present state of the art in nuclear magnetic resonance systems in order to make recommendations on the purchase of these systems.
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Medical instrumentation · Mar 1984
The perfusometer: an instrument for assessing the condition of critically ill patients.
The perfusometer provides a noninvasive means of monitoring distal perfusion for diagnosis and quantification of circulatory shock.
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To identify medical and administrative revenue trends at a surgical center, for use in strategic planning, an off-line data processing system utilizing coding sheets was developed. Data on 66,402 surgical procedures performed at the Osaka University Hospital Surgical Center between 1966 and 1981 were processed to study trends in revenues. Trend analysis shows that (a) revenues at the surgical center have been increasing year by year; (b) technical charges, such as operation and anesthesia fees, have increased with each revision of the medical remuneration system of Japanese government health insurance; and (c) the length of time patients stay in the operating room has gradually increased.
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Medical instrumentation · Nov 1983
Comparative StudyMonitoring the anesthetized patient in the operating room.
In general, monitors used by the anesthesiologist in the operating room provide three basic functions: assessment of machine and patient status to ensure safety; assessment of depth of anesthesia; and determination of physiologic variables. Improved monitoring should reduce risk and improve patient care. Some monitoring techniques are used in only a few specialized procedures, particularly in high-risk patients or for prolonged or difficult surgery. ⋯ While the potential for an integrated monitoring system--including all patient and delivery system variables--clearly exists, numerous difficulties preclude its becoming a reality. What is required is the development of an integrated system that can augment the anesthesiologist's sixth sense. Initial efforts toward device interface standardization, configurability, and flexibility must be encouraged to pave the way for the integrated, automated anesthesia delivery system of the future.
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To determine whether breath sounds in newborns are different from those described in older subjects, fast Fourier transform and power spectra analysis were performed on recorded breath sounds from 14 normal newborns. A respiration-triggered sampling technique was applied to compare early, middle, and late phases of inspiration and expiration, using a thoracic impedance signal. ⋯ The difference in breath sound quality of normal newborns appears to depend on the sound intensity during expiration. In contrast to older subjects, newborns showed only slightly less sound intensity during expiration; in the late phases of inspiration and expiration this intensity was almost equal.