Welch Allyn Acuity Directions For Use Manual page 70

66 Chapter 4 Adjust monitoring settings and patient information
Important considerations: Arrhythmia Analysis
Related to Arrhythmia Analysis options, patient populations and patient surveillance
Related to patient monitor heart rate indications
WARNING The Acuity System Arrhythmia Analysis options are not atrial
arrhythmia analysis packages: they are ventricular analysis packages. An Acuity
System with the Full Arrhythmia Analysis option detects these arrhythmia types:
ventricular fibrillation, asystole, ventricular tachycardia, PVC run (ventricular run),
VRhythm (ventricular rhythm), couplet, PVC per minute (ventricular beats per
minute), bigeminy, trigeminy, tachycardia, bradycardia, irregular (irregular
rhythm), pause, and noncapture (pacemaker noncapture).
WARNING In some clinical environments and due to some physiologic
differences among patients, the Acuity System might not alarm for occurrences
of ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, or asystole. For instance,
asystole is defined as an absence of any detected beat for four or more seconds.
Patient pathologies where indications of electrical activity continue to exist
without adequate cardiac function might not be recognized as asystole.
WARNING Do not use the Arrhythmia Analysis or ST Analysis feature on
neonates. The Arrhythmia Analysis and ST Analysis options are not intended for
use with neonatal patients.
WARNING It is important that clinicians understand and communicate to all staff
using the Acuity Central Station that any arrhythmia analysis software program is
an effective tool to assist in patient care, but arrhythmia analysis packages are
unable to achieve 100 percent accuracy for all morphologies and occurrences of
QRS and PVC detection. Thus, close physical surveillance and clinical
interpretation of cardiac data must still be an integral part of every patient's care.
Clinicians must review all data obtained from the Acuity System before
implementing therapy based on the data.
WARNING All heart rate alarms are valid, even if the HR value at the central
station differs from that at the monitor.
If your system includes an Arrhythmia Analysis option, the Acuity System heart
rates for adult and pediatric patients are a result of system software analysis.
The HR/PR numeric changes to "---" in the Virtual Monitor, Waveform Window,
review windows, and system printouts when the system detects ventricular
fibrillation or asystole. However, an apparently valid heart rate numeric might
show in the patient monitor.
Welch Allyn Acuity Central Monitoring System