What monitoring equipment features, such as pulse oximetry, are indispensable to your anesthesia providers and the nurses who care for patients in your surgery center? What features, such as anesthetic agent analysis, are simply matters of preference or convenience? Are there lower-tech (and lower cost) alternatives that work just as well? To uncover the answers to these and other questions, we queried manufacturers and facility managers about vital signs monitors. Plus, as a nurse anesthetist with nearly 20 years experience in ambulatory surgery, I can tell you what features anesthesia providers adore in a vital signs monitor, and what we abhor. And if you don't already know, let me tell you where to find the best monitor ever created on the planet.