Oxygen saturation monitoring in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU): Evaluation of a new alarm management

Objective: Oxygen saturation (SpO $_{2}$ ) monitoring is an integral part of patient care in intensive care units. Unfortunately, the clinical application of this technology has been adversely affected by the unacceptably high rate of false alarms, which has resulted in desensitizing the clinicians to SpO $_{2}$ alarms The SatSeconds™ alarm management feature (Nellcor™) incorporates an integral alarm. The primary hypothesis is that there will be progressive reduction in percentage saturation using the SatSeconds™ alarm feature depending on the integral settings.

Study design: 29 patients were monitored for 2 hours each with the study monitor. Upper and lower oxygen saturation alarm limits were determined individually and manually recorded and preset on the test oximeter for later analysis of alarm events. Test oximeter display values were not used for patient management. Audible alarms were silenced throughout the study.

Results: Alarm events were recorded while the SatSeconds™ alarm management feature was set at various points. With application of the SatSeconds™ alarm management feature, there was an overall decrease in alarms to 40% with a setting of 50 SatSeconds™.

Conclusion: Application of an integrated alarm system such as SatSeconds™ alarm management feature allows caregivers to respond to clinically relevant alarms.