Boehringer Durability

Our facility has a protocol in place that requires nursing to request suction regulators from central supply. Suction regulators constantly travel through the hospital and need to be installed and removed from the walls. It is not uncommon for a clinician to think a regulator is installed with a quick connect only to have it instantly fall out of the wall because of improper installation. Breakage from falling was the most common failure mode of regulators at our hospital.

All of the major regulator manufacturers were approached to see if they had a solution for our problem. We needed a regulator to withstand repeated drops from five feet onto a hospital floor. The original vendor installed throughout our hospital was discounted because of past durability which had brought us to this point. A second vendor brought in their suction regulator on a sales call and accidently dropped it onto the floor; the unit broke after the first drop and it did not seem prudent to test any further. A third vendor refused to submit sample product for a drop test because ‘they did not wish to provide product for the purpose of destroying it’. A fourth vendor submitted a regulator along with replacement gauge. The replacement gauge was submitted since they knew their gauge would not be able to withstand repeated drops without breaking but we could install the new gauge after our testing was complete and have a working regulator. Finally, Boehringer submitted their top of the line intermitting regulator with no preconditions.

A mark was drawn on a doorframe to indicate five feet, and a hospital volunteer was enlisted to help with the testing. On the first drop, the plastic regulator from the fourth vendor broke in two pieces. The replacement gauge they sent us was not enough to repair their regulator. Not much of a contest, the floor had prevailed over the regulator.

We dropped the Boehringer regulator from five feet and tested operation after each drop. A few times, we had to remove some remnants of floor tile from the surface of the regulator. Between drop 38 and 39 the gauge seemed slightly loose, so we simply tightened it and continued dropping. After drop # 50, the volunteers and Biomed Staff decided to have some fun and toss it around using a little creativity. The result was just as we expected: excellent performance by the Boehringer product after every impact. One of the volunteers marveled that the only thing damaged was the floor and he promptly offered to run it over with his Cadillac. We didn’t feel we needed more evidence. We have been extremely happy with the performance of these regulators in our hospital.

C.C.
Biomedical Engineer, Kansas