A prospective study on the user-friendliness of four anaesthesia workstations

Unlike for intensive care unit and home mechanical ventilators, no study has evaluated the user-friendliness of the recently introduced new anaesthesia workstations.

We performed a prospective study to evaluate the user-friendliness of four anaesthesia workstations, which were categorized into two groups: first-generation (Kion) and second-generation (Avance, Felix and Primus). Twenty users (12 nurse-anaesthetists and 8 anaesthesiologists) from three different anaesthesia departments at the same univeristy hospital participated in the study. The user-friendliness scale evaluated 10 criteria, including two design and monitoring criteria, four maintenance criteria and four ventilation use criteria. Each criterion was evaluated from 0 (poor) to 10 (excellent).

The mean score obtained for the first-generation workstation was lower than those obtained for the three second-generation workstations (P < 0.05). No significant differences in the overall user-friendliness score was observed for the three second-generation workstations. The first-generation workstation obtained a significantly lower score than the three second-generation workstations for the design criteria (P < 0.01). For the screen criteria, the highest score was obtained by Felix, which has the largest screen and associated characters. For the main maintenance criteria, Kion and Felix obtained the lowest scores. No significant differences between the four anaesthesia workstations were found for only three of the user-friendliness criteria (self-test, alarms and settings).

Anaesthesia machines have benefited from considerable advances in design and technology. This novel user-friendliness scale revealed that the most recent workstations were more appreciated by users than the first-generation of anaesthesia workstations. This user-friendliness scale may help the anaesthetic staff to 'consensually' choose the future workstation for their anaesthesia department.