title: The median filter as a preprocessor for a patient monitor limit alarm system in intensive care.
abstract: We studied the effects of removing brief variations in the monitoring data on the quality of limit alarms during the postoperative haemodynamic monitoring of cardiac patients. The variations were removed by median filtering. The false alarm frequency was reduced by more than two-thirds compared with a typical patient monitor. We designed and clinically tested a novel dual-limit alarm system with two median filters. The proportion of true alarms increased from 12% to 49% as compared to a typical patient monitor. The average false alarm frequency was 4.5 alarms per monitored hour. No correct alarms were missed.
authors.affiliation: Technical Research Centre of Finland, Medical Engineering Laboratory, Tampere.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mäkivirta
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Koski
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kari
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sukuvaara
mesh_terms: D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures; D004868:Equipment Failure; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D006439:Hemodynamics / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation; D011184:Postoperative Period; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted