User's Manual

7 ECG, Arrhythmia, ST and QT Monitoring Arrhythmia Alarms
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If you silence a yellow arrhythmia alarm and the alarm condition still exists, the visual indicators
continue until the condition stops. You will get an alarm reminder every time the configured timeout
period has expired.
If you silence a yellow arrhythmia alarm and the alarm condition has stopped, the visual indicators
are immediately cleared. Silencing an alarm does not reset its time out period, so you will not get a
realarm for the same condition or lower on the chain until the timeout expires.
Arrhythmia Alarm Chaining
When arrhythmia analysis is switched on, multiple alarm conditions may be present. Announcing all of
the detected alarm conditions would be confusing, and might hide a more serious condition. For this
reason, arrhythmia alarms are prioritized in three alarm “chains”: PVC Alarms; Beat Detection Alarms,
and Rate Alarms.
Only the highest priority alarm condition in each chain is announced. Lower priority alarms in the
same chain will not be announced while an alarm is active or during the configured timeout period. If
alarm conditions of equal severity from different chains are detected, the alarm condition that occurred
most recently is announced. The exception is Irregular HR, which only occurs if no other alarms are
occurring.
See “ECG and Arrhythmia Alarm Overview” on page 102 for information on which alarms are
included in the different arrhythmia options. See “Arrhythmia Alarm Timeout Periods” on page 113
for an explanation of how alarm timeouts work.