SafSeconds
Alarm
Management
With traditional alarm management, upper and lower alann
limits are set for moiiitoring oxygen saturation. During
monitoring, as
so011 as an alarm limit is violated by as little as
one percentage point, an audible alarm
iimnediately sounds.
When the
%Sp02 level fluctuates near an alarin limit, the alarm
sounds each
time the limit is violated. Such frequent alarms can
be distracting.
The
N-395
utilizes Nellcor
SatSeconds
alarm mailagemelit
technique. With the
SatSeconds
technique, upper and lower
alarm limits are set in the same way as traditional alarm
management. The clinician also sets a
SatSeconds
limit that
allows
inonitoring of %Sp02 below the selected low alarm liinit
for a period of time before an audible alarm sounds.
The
SatSeconds
limit controls the time that the %SpOz level
may fall below the alarm limit before an audible alarm sounds.
The method of calculation is as follows:
The number of percentage points that the
%§PO? falls outside
the
alarm limit is multiplied by the iluinber of seconds that the
%SpOz level remains outside that limit. This can be stated as an
equation:
Poiilts x Secoilds
=
SatSeconds
Where:
Points
=
SpOz percentage points below of the limit
Secoi~ds
=
nuinber of secoads Sp02 reinailis at
that point below of the limit
For example, Figure
1 1
demonstrates the alarm response time
assuming a
SatSeconds
limit set at
50,
and a lower alarin limit
set at
90
percent.
It1 this example, the %Sp02 level drops to
88
(2
points) and
remains there for a period of 2 secoilds (2 poiiits x
2
secoilds
=
4).
The %SpOz the11 drops to
86
for
3
seconds and then to
84
for
6
seconds. The resulting
SatSeconds
are:
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