Haemodynamic monitoring information is used to manage the care of critically ill patients. It is therefore essential that you are confident about the accuracy of the information that you are using.

Fluid filled pressure monitoring systems will cause some distortion to the pressure waveform. Up to 40% distortion has been shown in some cases.

Accuracy in pressure monitoring is not just dependent on the transducer, it's dependent on all the components in the pressure monitoring system; catheter, pressure, tubing, monitor filter and stopcocks. It has been shown that in order to know the accuracy of your system, you need to consider the performance of the total chain where all the components are linked together.

The Argon Gabarith test remains the only scientific technique that provides information about the dynamic response performance of the total pressure monitoring system (total chain).

The Argon Gabarith test assesses the system against pre-set windows of error (2%, 5% and 10% waveform distortion). For example: If the dynamic response of a pressure chain falls within the 10% Gabarith window then we know the pressure waveform will not be distorted by more than 10%.

Windows of tolerance are based on catheter tip sensor results (the 'gold' standard) using real patient data. The Argon Gabarith test exceeds the demands of the AAMI standard (Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation).