Objective:  1) To study the process of daily checking the anesthetic machine in the Department of Anesthesiology at Srinagarind Hospital; and 2) to assess what might be interfering with the standard daily checking of the equipment including problems and opinions about guideline.

Design:  Descriptive study.

Methodology:  The Anesthesiology Department personnel included in the study were anesthetic residents, nurse anesthetists and training anesthetic nurses (working between October and December, 2004.) The questionnaire used asked for:  1) frequency of daily anesthetic machine-checking; 2) problems in checking and the causes of those problems; and, 3) suggestions.  The data were analyzed for percentages.

Results:  Most (92.9%) of the personnel in the Department of Anesthesiology were concerned about the daily anesthetic machine checking before anesthetizing patients so most checked the equipment by themselves.  The most common check was the “leakage of circuit test” (85.7%) followed by the “O₂, Air, N₂O bobbin and APL valve” (83.9%).  The least checked aspect was the “O₂ cylinder supply check” (37.5%).  The most common causes for not checking the equipment were: 1) forgetting, 2) busy, 3) thinking it unnecessary, 4) thinking it already done by other staff and 5) insufficient equipment

Conclusion:  Personnel in the Anesthesiology Department were concerned about the daily checking of the anesthetic equipment and most checked it by themselves before using it on patients.  Some staff, however, did not check the equipment for a number of untenable reasons. The most common causes were: forgetting, busy, thinking it unnecessary and thinking it already done by other staff. In order to guarantee high quality service by the Department a more systematic approach to daily checking must be implemented.

Keywords:   Anesthesia, anesthetic machine; daily checking