Portable power devices.

T here are few pieces of equipment that are common to virtually all healthcare facilities, but portable power devices or power strips (sometimes called portable power taps) are one of them. Whether it is in a hospital, surgery center, doctor's offi ce, or veterinarian's offi ce, power strips are pervasive as the expansion of electrical equipment continues. The eternal problem appears to be either that power is not available in the right place and/or that there are insuffi cient receptacles for the number of devices needed. While everyone recognizes portable power devices, and almost everyone has at least one at home, there are signifi cant differences between various types and the protection that they afford medical staff and patients. In particular, recent changes in Underwriters Laboratories (UL) standards mean that different products might be purchased in the future. To complicate matters further, different areas of medical facilities require different types of portable power devices. Current portable power devices can be classifi ed into a number of types, primarily power strips, uninterruptible power supplies, and isolation transformers. Power strips are the most common type of portable power device. They consist of a plastic or metal enclosure and a number of receptacles. Most power strips also include a cord with a plug, a power indicator, and a circuit breaker. An example of a typical general purpose (non-medical) power strip is shown in Figure 1. The features of medical power strips that are generally important to users include the number of receptacles, the standards to which they are certifi ed (and thus the uses and locations for which they are suitable—see below), and special features that make their use particularly easy. Figure 2 shows an example of a UL 1363A power strip specifi cally designed to attach to an IV pole. Power strips may also include surge suppression, but this is not commonly found on medical-grade devices. Medical power strips usually include either wiring fault protection (primarily protecting against building wiring faults where line and neutral are reversed) or circuit breakers on both line and neutral. Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) are devices that contain battery backups that automatically connect if line power is lost. Since all general and critical care areas are required by the National Electrical Code (NEC) to have at least two circuits from the normal and emergency power systems, UPS systems are not particularly common. The wet procedure locations defi …