An electrical power quality problem in an emergency unit from a hospital – Case study –

The paper presents a power quality survey performed in the emergency department of the County Hospital from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Basically the PQ monitoring problem was determined by the great number of so called parasitized records of the patients' heart activity surveillance monitors. Until our study was carried out, the hospital staff conviction was that the imperfect contact of the bio-transducers and the human body (especially due to the patients' chest and arms pilosity) was the main reason of the phenomenon. Our study proved with a high probability, a possible connection between power quality events and the parasitized records. After the identification of the problem and the countermeasures we have proposed, the problem was solved in a large proportion, but not removed entirely.