Objective: To evaluate the efficiency of haemodynamic and respiratory monitoring system by a clinical analysis of the alarms.
Study design: Observational prospective study.
Patients: 25 patients who presented acute respiratory distress syndrome and who were monitored with haemodynamic and respiratory monitoring.
Methods: Each minute, a bedside clinical observer analysed alarms from the monitoring according to detection or absence to clinical events. Four situations were defined to statistical descriptive analysis: a) false positive (FP); b) true positive (TP); c) false negative (FN); and d) true negative (TN). True positive alarm which induced consequences on patients care were also analysed.
Results: 15,013 minutes allowed the recordings of 3,665 alarms, 44% from arterial pressure, 17% from SpO2 and 12% from airways maximal pressure. 46% were false positive alarms inducing a noisy pollution. The positive predictive value PPV = TP/(TP + FP) of these alarms were respectively 51% for arterial pressure, 18% for SpO2 and 100% for Paw. Only 5% of true positive alarms induced consequences on patients care.
Conclusion: This protocol allowed the evaluation of monitoring efficiency. This kind of evaluation may help to improve monitoring capacity with reducing noisy pollution from false positive alarms.