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Alarms: Transforming a Nuisance into a Reliable Tool

  • Conference paper
Intensive Care Medicine

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Abstract

Up to 77% of admissions to medical intensive care units (ICUs) take place, at least in part, for monitoring purposes, even though only 10% of the patients monitored will subsequently have indications for major interventions [1]. Modern ICU equipment takes advantage of a wide range of technologies to track physiological variables in order to detect changes that could be life-threatening. As response time is a key issue, most of these devices are equipped with a more or less sophisticated set of alarms that alert intensivists, nurses or respiratory therapists about changes that could represent a risk to patients.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intensive Care Unit, Clinica Bazterrica and Clinica Santa Isabel, Juncal 3002 Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    G. Murias

  2. University Institute Parc Pauli, Parc Tauli s/n, 08208, Sabadell, Spain

    B. Sales

  3. Critical Care Center, Institut Universitari Parc Pauli, Parc Tauli s/n, 08208, Sabadell, Spain

    L. Blanch

Authors
  1. G. Murias
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  2. B. Sales
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  3. L. Blanch
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Intensive Care Erasme Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Route de Lennik 808, 1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Jean-Louis Vincent MD, PhD, FCCM, FCCP (Head) (Head)

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© 2007 Springer Science + Business Media Inc.

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Murias, G., Sales, B., Blanch, L. (2007). Alarms: Transforming a Nuisance into a Reliable Tool. In: Vincent, JL. (eds) Intensive Care Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-49518-7_86

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-49518-7_86

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-49517-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-49518-7

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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