Medical device alarm modeling

#The present disclosure relates generally to medical device alarm modeling and, more particularly, to medical device alarm modeling features for setting alarm limits.

#This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

#In the field of medicine, doctors often desire to monitor certain physiological characteristics of their patients. Accordingly, a wide variety of devices have been developed for monitoring many such characteristics of a patient. Such devices provide doctors and other healthcare personnel with the information they need to provide the best possible healthcare for their patients. As a result, such monitoring devices have become an indispensable part of modern medicine.

#Advantages of the disclosed techniques may become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of a patient monitor that may employ an alarm modeling feature;

#FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an embodiment of a patient monitoring system that includes the patient monitor of FIG. 1;

#One or more specific embodiments of the present techniques will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

#The present disclosure relates to patient monitors with alarm modeling features that may be employed to set alarm limits. According to certain embodiments, the patient monitors may include a user interface for setting alarm limits that may be displayed on the patient monitors and/or on an external device, such as a central monitoring station. The user interface may allow a user to vary alarm limit settings and view how the settings change the alarm history for a representative data trend. For example, a graphical representation, such as a representative plethysmographic (“pleth”) waveform, may be displayed on the user interface along with indicators identifying alarm conditions on the representative pleth waveform. The representative pleth waveform may display sample data or may display actual patient data.

#As a user adjusts alarm limit settings, the alarm modeling feature may analyze the physiological data corresponding to the representative pleth waveform to identify alarm conditions for the adjust alarm limit settings. The alarm modeling feature may then update the indicators on the representative pleth waveform to reflect the newly determined alarm conditions. Accordingly, a user may be able to see how the changed alarm settings may change alarm frequency and/or duration for actual or sample data. In certain embodiments, the indicators may identify potential alarm conditions as well as actual alarm conditions that may produce an alarm under the adjusted alarm limit settings. For example, the indicators may identify sections of the representative plethysmographic waveform that may not produce an alarm under the current settings, but may produce an alarm if the alarm settings were adjusted.