Frequency, duration and cause of ventilator alarms on a neonatal intensive care unit. Belteki Gusztav,Morley Colin J Archives of disease in childhood. Fetal and neonatal edition OBJECTIVE:To investigate the frequency and cause of neonatal ventilator alarms. Neonatal ventilators frequently alarm and also disturb babies, parents and nurses. If frequent they may cause alarm fatigue and be ignored. The number, frequency and details of neonatal ventilator alarms are unreported. METHODS:We developed programs for retrieving and analysing ventilator data each second on alarms and ventilation parameters from 46 babies ventilated with Dräger Babylog VN500 ventilators using various modes. RESULTS:A mean of 60 hours was recorded per baby. Over 116 days, 27 751 alarms occurred. On average, that was 603 per baby and 10 per hour. Median (IQR) alarm duration was 10 (4-21) s. Type, frequency and duration varied between infants. Some babies had >10% of their time with alarms. Eight alarm types caused ~99% of all alarms. Three alarms, 'MV <low limit', 'MV >high limit' and 'respiratory rate >high limit', caused 46.6%, often due to inappropriate settings. 49.9% were due to a low expired tidal volume during volume guarantee ventilation, often due to the maximum pressure being set too low. 26 106 (94.1%) of all alarms lasted <1 min. However, 86 alarms lasted >10 min and 16 alarms >1 hour. Similar alarms were frequently clustered, sometimes >100/hour. CONCLUSIONS:Frequent ventilator alarms are caused by physiological variability in the respiratory rate or minute volume, inappropriate alarm limits or too low maximum peak inflating pressure during volume-targeted ventilation. While most alarms were very short, sometimes alarms were ignored by neonatal intensive care unit staff for long periods. 10.1136/archdischild-2017-313493

Fifteen-minute consultation: How to interpret and manage ventilator alarms in the neonatal intensive care unit. Mitra Nipa,Belteki Gusztav Archives of disease in childhood. Education and practice edition Modern neonatal intensive care units use a large number of monitoring and therapeutic devices. Most of them have alarms with varying degree of standardisation. Mechanical ventilator alarms alert clinicians about technical problems with equipment, acute deterioration of the patient, changes in his or her clinical condition or in respiratory mechanics. However, frequent ventilator alarms interfere with developmental care and they may lead to alarm fatigue, missed alarms and clinical incidents. In this article, we discuss the most important ventilator alarms and their clinical significance. We also provide advice how to respond to ventilator alarms and how to set alarm limits. 10.1136/archdischild-2019-318242