Problem & Context
Current cardiac telemetry systems triage alarms based on ECG signal deviation, but typically present alarms with minimal contextual information. Alarms indicate that something crossed a threshold, but often fail to communicate:
- signal confidence or stability
- whether the alarm is new or repetitive
- temporal patterns or escalation trends
- likely non-clinical causes (e.g., motion artifact due to patient activity such as brushing teeth, exercise, washing up)
- whether the issue is typically resolvable
As a result, clinicians must manually reconstruct context, rely heavily on mental models, and infer next steps under sustained cognitive load. Meanwhile, patients are exposed to loud, persistent alarms without understanding their meaning or context.
Alarm fatigue surfaces from this context gap, not just from alarm volume.
MY ROLE
RESEARCH METHODS USED
KEY INSIGHTS
DESIGN DECISIONS
EVALUATION
REFLECTION & NEXT STEPS