How do you calibrate a spygmometer?

[hlanelee]

I am a quality technician in a local factory and one of my major job functions is guage calibration. Yesterday, I took the wife to the doctor’s office and I was looking at the various measuring instruments around the office and I began wondering about the maintenance/calibration concerns that they might present. The guage that really concerned me the most was the spygmometer. How is a spygmometer calibrated? What about the different kinds, I have seen spygmometers that have a real column of mercury (these would be the easiest to determine the accuracy of) and I have seen them with a dial and there are some that are fully automatic (these would seem to be awful to verify)? What about uncertainty concerns like repeatability and reproduceability (there is some operator input in any guage that isn’t fully automated)? Are these things considered in a doctor’s office, in a hospital? What kinds of maintenance/calibration programs does a doctor’s office have? Does a hospital have? Do hospitals have calibration laboratories?

I lost sleep thinking about this.

[Xema]

Not sure if it’s a nitpick, but the correct spelling seems to be sphygmomanometer.

[Fear_Itself]

If you are talking about a sphygmomanometer:, it is compared against a mercury sphygmomanometer :

Mercury manometers are considered to be the, "Gold Standard " of measurement, because they do not go out of calibration. For this reason they are often required in clinical trials of pharmaceuticals and for clinical evaluations of determining blood pressure for high risk patients including pregnant women. Aneroid, mechanical, types are in common use, but should be checked against a mercury manometer if they are suspected to be out of calibration.

[treis]

@hlanelee

I am a quality technician in a local factory and one of my major job functions is guage calibration. Yesterday, I took the wife to the doctor’s office and I was looking at the various measuring instruments around the office and I began wondering about the maintenance/calibration concerns that they might present. The guage that really concerned me the most was the spygmometer. How is a spygmometer calibrated?

Isn’t a sphygmomanometer nothing more than a pressure transducer hooked up to an inflated bag? I’d imagine that the calibration is nothing different from any other pressure transducer.

[Napier]

Aim it at a blank wall and set it to “0”. Find exactly one spy and aim it at him, and set it at “1”. You might be able to hang around Washington, DC.