My daughter had an operation cancelled through the use of an electronic thermometer in the anaesthetic room that was “being trialled” despite having a normal temperature 15 minutes before using the electronic thermometer that had been in use in the hospital for some time.

The anaesthetist who took the second measurement wouldn’t accept that the trial instrument could give different readings and refused to administer the anaesthetic.

Gareth

Hi

Just a bit of personal information. 

Last year I was in hospital after a minor op and my temperature was monitored at four hourly intervals by electronic instruments.  At one point I was told I had to take paracetamol as my temperature had gone up by half a degree.  I asked the nurse whether it could be just a difference between the several instruments they were using, but such a concept seemed incomprehensible to her - all the thermometers must surely give the same result!    I asked how often they were checked and calibrated, and that produced the response that 'someone probably does it' but she did not know when or how and had never seen it done.  Similarly, I discovered that the balance used to weigh urine outputs seemed never to be checked or calibrated, and his seemed also to be true for the several portable bladder scanners that they used. 

It seems that many/most frontline staff have no training in or knowledge of the fact that the instruments they use every day might give different or incorrect readings and need to be checked and calibrated.  They believe implicitly that the results they read off are absolutely correct and have no error and that all instruments must read the same.  I had a long conversation about this with two trainee nurses.  They were intrigued by what I told them about measurement uncertainty, calibration and between-instrument variability and surprised/concerned that no-one had explained this to them in their training.

Jonathan

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