Medical Alarm Data Normalization for Coordinated Device Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
The lack of communication between medical devices leads to issues such as lack of context and situational awareness, alarm fatigue, inefficient prioritization and response, and increased risk of missed or delayed alarms, compromising patient safety and increasing stress on healthcare providers.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that receives data from multiple sources in different formats, converts them to a common format, and combines them into a consolidated uniform data set, while deidentifying personally identifiable information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If multiple medical devices operate independently without communication, then each device can function autonomously with its own alarm system, but alarm coordination and situational awareness deteriorate leading to alarm fatigue and missed alarms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized alarm management system that acts as an intermediary between multiple medical devices. This system receives alarm data from various devices, normalizes different data formats into a common structure, and coordinates alarm responses centrally. The intermediary system enables devices to function autonomously while achieving coordinated alarm management through the central platform that aggregates and standardizes alarm information from all sources.
Solution Approach 2:
The alarm management system is designed with universal functionality to handle multiple data formats and alarm types from diverse medical devices. It implements a common alarm data structure that can accommodate physiological alarms, technical alarms, and patient alarm data from different device vendors and types. This multi-functional approach allows the system to integrate various devices without requiring device-specific customization, thereby improving alarm coordination while managing system complexity.
2Loss of information
If alarms from multiple devices are aggregated without format standardization, then comprehensive alarm monitoring is achieved, but data processing complexity and response efficiency worsen due to format variations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a common alarm data structure that standardizes alarm information from multiple devices into a uniform format. This homogenization process transforms diverse alarm data types (physiological, technical, patient alarms) into a consistent structure with standardized fields for alarm priority, type, status, and contextual information. By making the data homogeneous, the system preserves complete alarm context while significantly simplifying data processing and enabling efficient automated response protocols.
3Loss of information
If alarm data is collected from multiple sources with different formats, then complete alarm information is available, but processing time and response delay increase due to format conversion requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary normalization of alarm data formats as data is received from various medical devices. By pre-converting different alarm formats into the common data structure at the point of ingestion rather than during processing, the system ensures complete alarm information is captured while minimizing processing delays. This preliminary action of standardization enables faster subsequent processing and quicker response times to critical alarms.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method, computer program product and computing system for: receiving first data from a first source having a first format; receiving at least second data from at least a second source having at least a second format; converting the first data from the first format to a common format, thus defining common format first data; converting the at least second data from the at least a second format to the common format, thus defining common format at least second data; and combining the common format first data and the common format at least second data to form a consolidated uniform format data set.