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It looks like it would help prevent the recent incident, but the confirmation screen at the end doesn't make it clear whether it's a test or a real thing. I kn

It looks like it would help prevent the recent incident, but the confirmation screen at the end doesn't make it clear whether it's a test or a real thing. I know there was that big screen at the front, but if you're confirming something you need all the options presented again to double check.

mc32 9y ago
There was a story of a nurse who was looking after a mother and her child in ICU. Child had many probes and alarms for alerting of change in condition. The alarms were going off constantly, but often times, the condition was not severe. Mother was not getting sleep. Nurse took pity on mother. She tried silencing alarms. The system had, i believe, seven warning screens warning against deactivation, all needed to be acked to proceed. She proceeded. Mother got rest. Alarms were silently blaring. Nurses did not get the critical alarms. Toddler did not make it. Nurse obviously fired hospital sued, monitoring system mfg sued. Monitoring mfg stated they didn't put in further failsafes because they never imagined someone would possibly go past seven ack Windows with all the warnings . Someone did.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  Did you know its actually a crime to sit in traffic and constantly honk your horn for no reason at all? That's because alerts are supposed to actually alert someone of something. By constantly sounding alerts for basically no reason, you are creating an unsafe environment, because REAL alerts will be ignored. I've sat by those beds, and had alarms not stop for 12 hours straight. They don't get nurses to come by and check, they aren't alerting to anything important and they are completely ignored. I believe the company should be sued, not for the GROSS negligence of the nurse unplugging every system, but for the minor negligence of designing a system where constant alerts that don't really mean anything or require any action can't be silenced.
  - mc32 9y ago
    The problem is she not only turned off the alarms and beeps in the patient room, but also all the notifications going to nurses' station and pagers, so when the real bad thing happened, no one got alerted.
bmelton 9y ago
Agreed. I'd move the environment screen to the end. Start an alert -> What kind of alert -> What message to send -> What environment to send to (test / production). In the event of a production message, you should have a confirmation prompt, in red, that must be confirmed. I think ultimately, you work towards a Pointing and Calling[1] system, such that it requires a second party to confirm the alert before it can be sent, but this is an improvement over current stage. Also, I have reservations on adding bureaucracy to the process given that in a real life missile emergency, I have little faith that the entire body of civil servants are going to wait around to make sure the alert is sent before rushing home to their families / beginning their own evacuations. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling

mc32 9y ago

There was a story of a nurse who was looking after a mother and her child in ICU. Child had many probes and alarms for alerting of change in condition. The alarms were going off constantly, but often times, the condition was not severe. Mother was not getting sleep. Nurse took pity on mother. She tried silencing alarms. The system had, i believe, seven warning screens warning against deactivation, all needed to be acked to proceed. She proceeded. Mother got rest. Alarms were silently blaring. Nurses did not get the critical alarms. Toddler did not make it. Nurse obviously fired hospital sued, monitoring system mfg sued. Monitoring mfg stated they didn't put in further failsafes because they never imagined someone would possibly go past seven ack Windows with all the warnings . Someone did.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
Did you know its actually a crime to sit in traffic and constantly honk your horn for no reason at all? That's because alerts are supposed to actually alert someone of something. By constantly sounding alerts for basically no reason, you are creating an unsafe environment, because REAL alerts will be ignored. I've sat by those beds, and had alarms not stop for 12 hours straight. They don't get nurses to come by and check, they aren't alerting to anything important and they are completely ignored. I believe the company should be sued, not for the GROSS negligence of the nurse unplugging every system, but for the minor negligence of designing a system where constant alerts that don't really mean anything or require any action can't be silenced.
- mc32 9y ago
  The problem is she not only turned off the alarms and beeps in the patient room, but also all the notifications going to nurses' station and pagers, so when the real bad thing happened, no one got alerted.

bmelton 9y ago

Agreed. I'd move the environment screen to the end. Start an alert -> What kind of alert -> What message to send -> What environment to send to (test / production). In the event of a production message, you should have a confirmation prompt, in red, that must be confirmed. I think ultimately, you work towards a Pointing and Calling[1] system, such that it requires a second party to confirm the alert before it can be sent, but this is an improvement over current stage. Also, I have reservations on adding bureaucracy to the process given that in a real life missile emergency, I have little faith that the entire body of civil servants are going to wait around to make sure the alert is sent before rushing home to their families / beginning their own evacuations. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling