CHICAGO (AP) ? Constantly beeping alarms from devices that monitor the vital signs of the critically ill have "desensitized" hospital workers who sometimes ignore the noise, leading to at least two dozen deaths a year on average, a hospital accrediting group said Monday.
And these cases are probably vastly underreported, said the Joint Commission in an alert to hospitals calling attention to the problem.
The beeping devices include those that measure blood pressure and heart rate among other things. Some beep when there's an emergency, and some beep when they're not working. That can lead to noise fatigue and the delay in treating a patient can endanger lives, the accreditation commission says.
Complicating the situation is the abundance of technology, with no standardization for what the beeps mean, said Dr. Ana McKee, the commission's executive vice president and chief medical officer.
The commission's estimate of possible deaths related to the problem is considerably lower than the reports it found in a U.S. Food and drug Administration database. The FDA lists more than 500 deaths potentially linked with hospital alarms between January 2005 and June 2010. But that includes mandatory reports of malfunctions and in some cases the connection to a death is only tenuous.
The commission's own database reports 80 deaths and 13 severe injuries between January 2009 and June 2012. Hospitals voluntarily report these to the commission, which reviews them and in these cases determined there was a clear connection to the device, said McKee.
There likely are far more problems than have been reported, partly because ignoring or misinterpreting an alarm may have set off a chain of events that led to an injury or death, she explained. But tracing back to that first oversight can be difficult, McKee said.
Alarm-system events included patient falls, delays in treatment and medication errors that resulted in injury or death, the Joint Commission said.
The most common factor was "alarm fatigue." But other problems included misinterpreting alarm signals, too few staffers to respond to alarms, and equipment malfunctions.
"With the proliferation of technology, alarms, and a lack of standardization," it's more challenging for doctors and nurses to respond adequately, McKee said.
The commission said hospital leaders need to address the problem and train staffers in safe alarm management.
The organization accredits more than 10,000 U.S. hospital and health care organizations. Hospitals covet accreditation and following commission advice is key to maintaining it.
McKee said the alert will help raise awareness and lead to hospital changes that may save lives.
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Online:
Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hospital-group-says-alarm-fatigue-deadly-165344249.html
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We've shown you how to get started with the Raspberry Pi, the pocket-sized DIY dream computer. Here are ten awesome projects you can put together in a weekend with this $35 board. 
We showed you how to build a Raspberry Pi Airplay Receiver, now take it up a notch and add a Pandora Jukebox to the mix so you can stream tunes to your speakers when you're not listening to your own music. It's a simple project, and Shaun Gehring even shares the code and steps required to get it up and running.
It's not for everyone, and it's definitely more expensive than just buying a similar device, but this previously mentioned hand-held Raspberry Pi-powered computer is an excellent DIY project that'll put your skills to the test. It's packed with a 3.5" LCD display and a 64GB SSD, a full physical keyboard and trackpad, and serious processing power. It's not for the quick-and-easy crowd, but if you're a serious hacker or maker, this is a project to try. Don't want to roll your own everything? Try this Raspberry Pi PC in a keyboard (German link) project they we've featured before instead. Alternatively, try this all-in-one Raspberry Pi PC mod that just straps the Pi and all of its gear to the back of a display, perfect for that iMac-like feel.
If your vision is impaired, or you just like doing other things while having a book?or your Twitter stream?read aloud to you, the Raspberry Pi is the perfect device to dedicate to the task. For example, this one-button audiobook player was an ideal gift for a 90-year old grandmother who loves listening to audio books. Just pop in an SD card loaded with a book, and press the button to hear it read aloud. Prefer Twitter to literature? Okay, this adorable wood bowl looks cute and reads your stream aloud in real time. Plus, all of the tools required to build both are available. If an adorable wood bowl isn't your style, there's always Manuel, the Scottish Moose. He'll read your tweets, and look creepy while he does it.
The Raspberry Pi is essentially a tiny, headless computer, that you can manage remotely. Servers also happen to be headless computers that you can manage remotely, so it makes sense that someone would turn a Raspberry Pi into a tiny personal web server you can run just about anywhere. We covered it not too long ago, but the full guide walks you through the setup, installing the right packages, installing PHP, and getting it all ready for your automated torrenting/streaming box, your hand-crafted online resume or your own personal landing page.
Time-lapse videos of cityscapes or stars streaming across the sky can make for beautiful video, but to get the same effect, you'll need a dolly that can move, pan, and tilt the shot ever-so-slowly over the course of many hours. Instead of spending a ton of money on a professional rig, Rick Adam's DIY Raspberry Pi-powered dolly does the same for far far cheaper, and can be remotely controlled and managed by an Android phone. This one will take some work if you want to do it yourself, but the proof is in the results.
If photography is your hobby, this previously mentioned Raspberry Pi hack essentially embeds the tiny computer into a DSLR to extend its functionality. With their powers combined, you get a DSLR that can wirelessly (or wired, via USB) transmit photos to a PC while you shoot them, as they're saved, control the camera remotely with a PC, tablet, or smartphone, convert images on the fly as you take them, and much much more. Photographer David Hunt managed to fit the Pi and all of the electronics needed into a tiny battery pack that attaches to the bottom of his DSLR's grip.
We showed you how to do a little packet sniffing with your Raspberry Pi during the last Evil Week, but you don't have to go that far if you want to use your Raspberry Pi as a computer security and forensics tool. The folks at Pwnie Express have a Debian (not Raspbian, mind you) based penetration-testing and security auditing distro for the Raspberry Pi called Raspberry Pwn. With it comes a myriad of security and networking tools, all rolled into a tiny OS on a tiny portable computer that you can hook up anywhere. Use these powers for good, folks.
Dropbox is great, but sometimes you want to be in control of your own files. If you have a Raspberry Pi, you can build your own personal cloud storage service. We discussed the project not too long ago, but the full project uses OwnCloud to create a personally managed and hosted cloud storage service across systems that you own and only you have access to. You'll need some storage to get this one up and running, not to mention the Raspberry Pi and a good case for it, but that's about all. When you're done, you'll have a personal Dropbox that you can use to store anything you want, with as much storage as you're willing to add to it.
Electronic picture frames are cool, but this Raspberry Pi-powered DeviantArt picture frame lets you hook up your Pi to the web and to do an LCD screen (presumably one you have framed on the wall or on your desk) and a DeviantArt account. From there, just use the source code that Cameron Wiebe provides in his walkthough to pull popular photos down for display as a slideshow. You can even tweak the code so you only get images from your favorite artist, or of your favorite subject or topic. You can check out what the frame looks like in the image here, with an illustration by ArtGerm at DeviantArt that Cameron took of the final product (via Wired).
The other beautiful thing about the Raspberry Pi being such a tiny computer is that you can task it with things that don't take too much processing power but that you'd like built into other devices, like this Raspberry Pi arcade system that we absolutely love. It's embedded into a coffee table, along with the joystick, buttons, and a 24" display for all of the games you'll play on it. Best of all, the full walkthrough is right there, and if you have the equipment to make it work, it's easy to build. Alternatively, you can consider a different form factor and follow the same guide. Maybe a stand-up cabinet, perhaps?