Optimization Strategies to Reduce Alarm Fatigue in Patient Monitors

Mengxing Liu1, Zehui Sun1, Wenyu Ye1, Xianliang He1, Ye Li2
1Mindray, 2Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences


Abstract

BACKGROUND: In order to ameliorate alarm fatigue, three optimization strategies were proposed to reduce false alarms and repetitive non-actionable true alarms. METHODS: The four-lead arrhythmia analysis, multi-parameter fusion and intelligent threshold reminder were applied and evaluated in multi-center clinic study. The four-lead arrhythmia analysis algorithm includes lead optimization, beat matching, detection and classification combinations. The multi-parameter fusion algorithm involves the information calculated from ECG, SpO2 and IBP wave signals. The intelligent threshold reminder can help medical staff to adjust and recover alarm limits appropriately. RESULTS: The results show that more than 50% of false alarms were reduced by the four-lead analysis and the multi-parameter fusion analysis. In some specific occasions, the intelligent threshold reminder could reduce repetitive non-actionable true alarms significantly. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that to increase the dimensionality of parametric analysis and control the alarm limits are conducive to reduce alarm fatigue in intensive care units.