Validation and Reliability of Blood Pressure Monitors

With the increasing marketing of automated and semiautomated devices for the measurement of blood pressure, there is a need for potential purchasers to be able to satisfy themselves that such devices have been evaluated according to agreed-upon criteria (1). With this need in mind, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) published a standard for electronic or aneroid sphygmomanometers in 1987 (2), which included a protocol for the evaluation of the accuracy of devices; this was followed in 1990 by the protocol of the British Hypertension Society (BHS) (3). Both protocols were revised in 1993 (4,5). These protocols, which differed in detail, had a common objective, namely the standardization of validation procedures to establish minimum standards of accuracy and performance and to facilitate comparison of one device with another (6).