This may also be caused by an empty vaporizer (or nitrous oxide cylinder) or a malfunctioning intravenous pump or disconnection of its delivery tubing.

Sales of drug and nutrition treatments that are administered by patients to themselves or by nurses using intravenous pumps or other devices, called home-infusion therapies, reached $3.1 billion last year, a 19 percent increase over 1991.

To date, almost all the publicity about Y2K in health care has focused on concerns that because medical devices like pacemakers, X-ray machines and intravenous pumps have embedded microprocessors, they could malfunction.

Medicare helps pay for wheelchairs, portable ventilators, oxygen supplies, artificial limbs, surgical dressings, catheters, intravenous pumps, muscle stimulators and many other items.

Two weeks ago, the agency issued a news release about the recall of 206,000 intravenous pumps made by Baxter International, a first for such a recall.

Clinical nurse specialists set up medical equipment - cardiac monitors and intravenous pumps, for example - in your home and train you or a family member to use it.

Others were attached to intravenous pumps and every drop of blood was drained from their bodies to see how long they could survive.

Nissan Design International's portfolio includes a 105-foot yacht, a computer, a vacuum cleaner and an intravenous pump for hospitals.

"Ten years ago, an intravenous pump was a 40-pound object on a pole," Mr. Sweeney said.

But the noise came from the monitor on Krystle's intravenous pump, signaling that her medication was running low.