Sensor has its finger on the pulse

Burkert Fluid Control Systems' components are being used to help monitor the accuracy of some of the most vital instruments in medicine.

Burkert Fluid Control Systems' components are being used to help monitor the accuracy of some of the most vital instruments in medicine.

Monitoring cardiac output - the measure of blood flow rate through the heart - is a potentially life-saving procedure carried out during surgery.

Scottish company Aortech produces instruments to continuously monitor cardiac output in real time.

Their latest system depends on Burkert flow transmitters and sensors to retain accuracy and the high levels of operational standards required in the medical profession.

Aortech's Trucath system is a pulmonary artery system that has been developed in conjunction with the Truccoms monitor to continuously monitor the 'cardiac output' in real time during surgery.

The system, similar to standard thermal mass flow meters, monitors the power consumed that, in turn, is proportional to the flow rate/cardiac output.

Every catheter produced is subjected to rigorous QA inspection.

This includes testing the catheter on a specialist automated flow test bench whereby the flows measured by the catheter are compared to flows measured by a benchmark-calibrated flowmeter.

Using an in-house designed data acquisition and processing system, much statistical analysis is carried out and retained for historical records.

The benchmark flowmeter used is a Burkert 8025 'low-flow' transmitter coupled to an 8030 flow sensor.

Jeff Loughridge, Aortech Manufacturing Development Engineer, comments: "We chose this system on the basis of cost and its simplicity in setting up but more importantly for the fact that it can easily be calibrated in-house using the inbuilt 'teach-in' function.

This ensures that our calibration technique remains traceable to UKAS standards".

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