Driving accuracy in patient outcomes
In today’s hospital environment, most care teams must reference several data sources to gain a complete picture of a patient’s condition. Not only is this an extremely time-consuming process, but it also increases the risk of misinterpretation of data, which could lead to medical errors.

SDC offers the promise of improving interoperability between devices to enable the data generated by ventilators, infusion pumps, and vital signs monitors to communicate more effectively through a common language. These insights can be accessed through the central station, web, or mobile application, so clinicians can quickly take action regardless of their location in the hospital. Having easier access to health information can alleviate clinician frustration and potentially improve patient outcomes.
Streamlining patient monitoring with remote alarm management
In hospital settings, alarms are a constant source of noise. With an estimated 1,300 data points being produced per patient daily in the ICU, the abundance of alarms can create a stressful environment for clinicians and patients. Each day, clinicians hear an average of 350 alarms per patient, and of these, 76.9-99.4% are false positives or non-actionable.

The sheer volume and false positive rate of alarms contribute to alarm fatigue amongst clinicians, which can cause them to miss critical notifications or delay their response. Not only is this leading to clinician burnout, but more importantly, it is putting patient safety at risk. Patients are experiencing their own kind of fatigue when it comes to alarms as well, which is negatively impacting their recovery. ICU patients can endure over 58 decibels of noise each day, causing unnecessary stress that puts them at risk of sleep deprivation and delirium, potentially extending their length of stay and impacting their overall recovery.

The application of SDC shows great promise in places like the NICU, where it is common for newborns to trigger a non-critical alarm in their incubator accidentally. Rather than entering the NICU to manage the alarm, care teams can adjust the alarm from the nurse central station, allowing the unit to remain quiet. Similarly, in the ICU, if a patient’s ventilation volume decreases, it could trigger a high-priority “no inspiratory flow” alarm. Alerts can be sent directly to a mobile device, allowing the clinician to accept the alarm to stop the escalation path and prevent other audible alarms from being triggered as they go to check on the patient.

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