Why Hospitals Use Medical Isolated Power Systems

With the rapid development of medical electronic technology, the use of various electronic instruments and medical equipment in hospital wards is increasing. This has placed patients and medical staff in hospitals in complex electrical environments. How to effectively prevent electrical leakage accidents in special places such as hospital wards and ensure the personal safety of patients and medical staff has become an increasingly important topic in the field of hospital electrical safety.

The Function of Medical Isolated Power Systems

Isolation Protection

As the name suggests, the most important function of the isolated power supply is electrical isolation. This isolation ensures that there is no direct electrical connection between medical equipment and the mains electricity, effectively preventing electrical shock accidents.

Stable Power Supply

Medical isolated power systems can provide a stable voltage output, ensuring that medical equipment can maintain normal operation under different load conditions, preventing voltage fluctuations from affecting the equipment.

Fault Indication

Many advanced medical isolated power systems are equipped with fault detection and indication functions. When the system detects a potential fault, it can promptly issue an alarm, prompting medical staff to check.

Anti-Interference Capability

This power supply design usually has strong anti-electromagnetic interference capabilities, effectively resisting various electromagnetic interferences in the environment, ensuring the normal operation of medical equipment in complex environments.

The Necessity of Using Medical Isolated Power Systems in Hospitals

In the special environment of hospitals, electrical currents pose potential dangers to patients, thus placing special requirements on electrical safety design.

For various medical purposes such as measurement, diagnosis, or treatment, patients often need to be connected to multiple electrical medical devices. At this time, the patient's skin resistance may be compromised, their sense of pain may be lost or diminished, and their defense capability may accordingly decrease or vanish.

Especially during surgery or under anesthesia, various electrodes, sensors, or conduits may be directly inserted into the patient's body. In such cases, even a leakage current of just 10 microamperes passing through the patient's heart can lead to electrical death, a phenomenon medically known as micro-shock.

Meanwhile, hospital operating rooms or ICU, CCU wards are also places with high reliability requirements for electricity. No matter what situation arises, the continuity of power supply should be maximized; otherwise, the power cut-off of life-sustaining equipment could pose a life-threatening risk to patients.

Considering the above factors, countries around the world generally adopt medical isolated power systems with insulation monitoring devices, i.e., ungrounded power systems, to supply power to places like ICU, CCU, and operating rooms.

The Superiority of Medical Isolated Power Systems

Reduces electric shock voltage and leakage current to ground from the power grid, minimizing the risk of electric shock.
By using an isolation transformer, it can prevent leakage currents within the grounded system from entering the ground circuit of certain medical electrical equipment connected to the patient.
If a first ground leakage fault occurs within the power system, it will not trigger the breaker or fuse, thus ensuring the reliability of the power supply.
Reduces leakage current to ground, thereby improving fire safety.

Due to the above superiorities, medical isolated power systems have been widely adopted worldwide and have become the standard power supply in operating rooms and other medical facility areas.

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