title: Intelligent alarm processing into clinical knowledge.
abstract: Alarmed physiological monitors have become a standard part of the ICU. While the alarms generated by these monitors can be important indicators of an altered physiological condition, most are unhelpful to medical staff due to a high incidence of false and clinically insignificant alarms. High numbers of false/insignificant alarms can lead to several adverse consequences such as increased patient anxiety,distraction of clinicians, and decreased efficiency in delivery of care. Furthermore, repeated false/insignificant alarms may increase the chance that healthcare providers ignore clinically significant alarms. In this paper we review the current state of intelligent alarm processing and describe an integrated systems methodology to extract clinically relevant information from physiological data. Such a method would aid significantly in the reduction of false alarms and provide nursing staff with a more reliable indicator of patient condition.
authors.affiliation: Faculty in the Department of Bioengineering, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY 13902, USA. claramee@binghamton.edu
authors.forename: Craig B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Laramee
authors.forename: Leann
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lesperance
authors.forename: Don
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gause
authors.forename: Ken
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McLeod
mesh_terms: D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic