Are Your Operating Rooms About To Shut Down?
In order to meet the requirements for advanced medical procedures, many hospitals have increased the amount
of high-energy equipment used in existing operating rooms. In doing so, some hospitals have discovered that
they no longer have sufficient power to handle the demand. In some cases the isolation transformer has been
overloaded causing circuit breakers to trip and shutting down portions of the operating room.
If you are concerned about this or are actually experiencing problems, conducting a load analysis will help you
pinpoint the problem. To do this, simply add up the amp requirements of all the equipment that can be used at
one time in the operating room. Compare this with the amp capacity of your isolation transformer. To find the
amp capacity of your transformer, first locate the nameplate on the transformer and read the KVA rating on the
transformer connected to the 120 volt outlets. The calculation would be:
Therefore, your transformer can carry 41.6 amps continuously.
If you find you need to increase the power available in your operating room, we can suggest two alternatives that
do not require major room renovation:
- Change out the existing transformer to one with a higher rating which meets your needs if there is sufficient
room in the panel.
- Add a new self-contained isolated power panel to the operating room. We manufacture a fully self-contained
isolated power panel that has power receptacles mounted on the front panel and contains its own transformer
and circuit breaker panelboard. This panel is designed to be mounted separately from your existing isolated
power panel and comes in both FLUSH and SURFACE mount configurations with ratings up to 15 KVA.
Contact PG LIFELINK for additional information.
