Power Quality has always been a key issue for healthcare facility managers. With the rapid advances in medical technology, hospitals, medical clinics and laboratories increasingly rely on sophisticated electronic devices for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. This equipment is often interconnected within networks, industrial processes and power infrastructure and can be negatively affected by events that arise both from the supplying power system and are generated within the facility.

All of the interconnection of electrical circuits, and the high sensitivity of the equipment in use, demands a high degree of power quality and reliability to prevent disruption of mission-critical operations and procedures. Power quality disturbances can be caused by a range of internal and external phenomena and often re-occur because the location and nature of the event is not well understood or identified.

While the costs of downtime or failures can result in thousands of dollars per hour, the costs of power and equipment failures in critical patient operations are immeasurable. Power monitoring is key to maximizing uptime and ensuring all power infrastructure is functioning properly.