Application of the visual auscultatory blood pressure measuring system

The auscultatory method has been widely used in clinical practice and is considered to be the gold standard for blood pressure (BP) measurement. However, some subjective factors, such as the observer bias and the terminal digital preference, may inevitably influence the observer measurements. To decrease the observer error in the auscultatory BP measurement, the visual auscultatory blood pressure measuring system was developed, which can record the cuff pressure, oscillometric pluses and Korotkoff sounds and show their waveforms. The accuracy of the system has been previously verified using the International Protocol. The system is a powerful tool for study of auscultatory BP measurement. It has broad applications, including recording BP measurement, validation of BP measuring devices, establishment of a database of Korotkoff sounds, training new nurses in BP measurement, testing the effectiveness of a BP measurement algorithm, performing quantitative analysis and computation of Korotkoff sounds, and extracting more medical information from auscultatory measurement. These applications are stated in this article.