So, just how do the alarms on your monitor work? Simply hitting silence every time they ring probably defeats the purpose and gets annoying after a bit. The Lifepak 12 and 15 actually has a set of smart alarms once you know they work.

When the alarms are configured ON, predetermined limits are set. To view these limits, press the ALARMS button. The limits will temporarily appear to the right of the parameter value. To change the limits, select QUICK SET.

When the alarms are configured OFF, the ALARMS button must be pressed and QUICK SET selected to enable alarms.

The cool part is this:

Select QUICK SET to activate the alarms for all active parameters. The QUICK SET limits are automatically set based on the patient’s current vital sign values.

When you select WIDE or NARROW it creates an envelope around your patient’s current vital signs, for example in wide mode if patient’s current HR is 60 it will alarm if it drops by 20 or increases by 35, if you set narrow for this same patient it would alarm if it drops by 10 points or increases by 25. You can see the table here

Or you can always just hit silence : )

For those of you that receive dispatch info via SMS and have an Android device, there is a great program called CADpage which will send the call info into Google maps to help you find the exact location quickly (and to google navigation if desired). The program has been configured to accept many CADs and works very well and reliably. If your location is not set up, the developers are very responsive and will get it set up pretty quickly.

You can download here