Pulse contour analysis of arterial waveform in a high fidelity human patient simulator.

The measurement of cardiac output (CO) may be useful to improve the assessment of hemodynamics during simulated scenarios. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of introducing an uncalibrated pulse contour device (MostCare, Vytech, Vygon, Padova, Italy) into the simulation environment. MostCare device was plugged to a clinical monitor and connected to the METI human patient simulator (HPS) to obtain a continuous arterial waveform analysis and CO calculation. In six different simulated clinical scenarios (baseline, ventricular failure, vasoplegic shock, hypertensive crisis, hypovolemic shock and aortic stenosis), the HPS-CO and the MostCare-CO were simultaneously recorded. The level of concordance between the two methods was assessed by the Bland and Altman analysis. 150-paired CO values were obtained. The HPS-CO values ranged from 2.3 to 6.6 L min-1 and the MostCare-CO values from 2.8 to 6.4 L min-1. The mean difference between HPS-CO and MostCare-CO was - 0.3 L min-1 and the limits of agreement were - 1.5 and 0.9 L min-1. The percentage of error was 23%. A good correlation between HPS-CO and MostCare-CO was observed in each scenario of the study (r = 0.88). Although MostCare-CO tended to underestimate the CO over the study period, good agreements were found between the two methods. Therefore, a pulse contour device can be integrated into the simulation environment, offering the opportunity to create new simulated clinical settings.