Syringe pumps are medical devices for a continuous intravenous application of drugs in a prescribed dose rate. By the use of syringe pumps highly efficient drugs such as pain relievers, anaesthetics and cardiological drugs can be administered easily and safely. Due to maloperation of medical devices, however, accidents tend to happen quite often. These so-called "occurrences" or "near-occurrences" can lead to a patient's dead. In this study ergonomically insufficient designs and defects in the construction of usable medical devices are going to be examined.

As part of the BAuA research project F 1902, "Collection of basic solutions for the ergonomic product design, exemplified by the usability of medical devices", several syringe pumps of various producers are tested for their ergonomical quality. Within an ergonomic evaluation several methods are applied to test the usability of the medical devices in question. The results of these tests provide a detailed insight into the usability and the fault analysis of syringe pumps.

In order to minimize the amount of occurences and near-occurences suggestions how to improve the user safety and thus, as a major aim, promote the patient's safety are developed and discussed.

Please download the complete report "Analyses on ergonomics of medical devices - Case study syringe pumps" (in German only).