Ventilation Alarm Segmentation Reducing False Alarms
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current medical devices for machine-assisted ventilation generate excessive clinically irrelevant alarms, leading to desensitization of healthcare staff and increased risk, as they fail to distinguish between actual and supposed patient dangers, particularly in cases of pathological breathing patterns like Biot's breathing.
Innovation Solution
A process and device that measure minute volume, determine a median value, and establish a critical range with a lower alarm limit and a time delay, allowing for a tolerance interval where alarms are only triggered if the minute volume falls below the alarm limit or remains undershot for an extended period, thereby reducing false alarms during pathological breathing patterns.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If alarm limits are set close to normal values to ensure early detection of dangerous situations, then patient safety is improved, but the number of clinically irrelevant alarms increases
Solution Approach 1:
The alarm system is segmented into multiple alarm limits (first alarm limit, second alarm limit, third alarm limit) with different distances from the normal value range. This segmentation allows the system to differentiate between critical alarms (first limit) and less critical warnings (second and third limits), reducing the impact of clinically irrelevant alarms while maintaining early detection capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The alarm system dynamically adjusts the number and positioning of alarm limits based on the specific clinical situation and patient condition. The control device can adaptively set different alarm thresholds rather than using fixed limits, allowing optimization between patient safety and alarm relevance for each individual case.
2Object-generated harmful factors
If alarm limits are weakened to reduce the number of alarms, then acoustic discomfort and desensitization are reduced, but the sensitivity of monitoring decreases
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the alarm system into multiple limits with different alerting behaviors, the system maintains high monitoring sensitivity through the first alarm limit (closest to normal values) while reducing acoustic discomfort by making subsequent limits non-alarming or with reduced alert intensity.
Solution Approach 2:
Different alarm limits have different local qualities in terms of alerting behavior. The first alarm limit triggers full alarms for critical situations, while second and third limits provide warnings or visual alerts only, creating localized responses appropriate to each threshold level.
3Object-generated harmful factors
If a verification interval is used to delay alarm triggering, then false alarms are reduced, but the response time to dangerous situations increases
Solution Approach 1:
The verification interval concept is segmented and applied selectively: the first alarm limit (critical threshold) triggers immediate alarms without verification delay to ensure rapid response to dangerous situations, while second and third limits may use verification intervals to filter out transient fluctuations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the verification interval parameter dynamically based on which alarm limit is triggered. Critical limits have zero or minimal verification intervals, while less critical limits have longer verification periods, optimizing both response time and false alarm reduction.
Data Source
AI summary
A device and process generates an alarm during a machine-assisted ventilation of a patient. A minute volume is measured and a median of the minute volume and a lower critical limit value of the minute volume and a time delay are determined and are recorded in a control device. A reference signal is determined as a function of the lower critical limit value for the minute volume and the time delay based on the median of the minute volume. From the reference signal an alarm limit value located below the lower critical limit value as well as a value for a maximum tolerated duration of apnea of the patient are derivable. An alarm signal is generated both during an undershooting of the lower critical limit value over a period of time that is longer than the established time delay and during an undershooting of the alarm limit value.