[throwaway173738]

The ventilator company I worked for tried very hard to avoid false positives because we were very concerned about alarm fatigue. We also tried to ride the line on false negatives. It’s really hard.

Sometimes the alarm limits are set incorrectly by the RT or aren’t forgiving enough to allow some motion. When you see an entire ward of nurses totally ignoring alarms it’s a management failure. Either there aren’t enough nurses available to manage the issue or there aren’t enough technicians to properly configure the equipment for each patient. If someone dies because of that then it’s ultimately the hospital’s fault.

[LorenPechtel]

The day I encountered it I have no idea of what sensitivity controls might have existed but the problem was unquestionably the system failing to recognize that what had just transpired was a beat. The trace on the screen looked like a beat to me, but not always to it.

I will not say it was a management failure because I don't know if management could have done anything about it. Given the total indifference of the nurses I strongly suspect they couldn't do anything.