Guidelines for clinical engineering programs--Part I: guidelines for electrical isolation; Part II: performance evaluation of clinical engineering programs.

This series presents guidelines for: electrically isolated inputs and outputs; measuring the performance of hospital biomedical engineering programs; evaluating the risk of electric shock in hospitals; and for isolated power in anesthetizing locations. In Part I, specific recommendations are given for the use of insulated approach, battery-powered monitors in surgery, and for isolation requirements for devices connected to cardiac leads. In Part II, checklists are provided for the self-evaluation of an in-house, biomedical engineering staff. Parts III and IV, in future issues of this Journal, will include discussion of the theoretical electrical hazard potential in reference to the use of isolated power systems. The question of whether isolated power should be required in all anesthetizing locations will be discussed in Part IV.