Throughout the United States, over 100 patients, who were dependant on ventilators to breathe, have died since 2005. It is possible that some of these deaths occurred in Pennsylvania. Though reasons for these tragedies vary, the most common denominator appears to be the alarm warnings issued by ventilators, the volume of alert beeps or the failure of caregivers to respond in a timely fashion to these signals. In some situations these incidents can lead to medical malpractice lawsuits.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports around 800 "alarm-related adverse events" occurred in 2010. In many cases, the FDA listed these events as "preventable" or resulting from "human error." Ventilators are wonderful appliances, helping patients breathe when they are unable to oxygenate on their own. However, on-duty medical professionals must closely monitor electronic and sound warnings of malfunction closely.
The FDA is very concerned about these issues. It issued a formal alert this past fall to caregivers reminding them to closely monitor ventilator alarms, to avoid missing problems with the machine. The agency is also concerned about "alarm fatigue," from medical professionals becoming desensitized from being bombarded with audible warnings of equipment malfunctions.
CareFusion, a respected ventilator maker, is also concerned with alarm fatigue, admitting that "it's not an easy problem to solve at this point." This problem is not confined to hospitals or nursing homes, as around 25 percent of these fatalities occurred in patients' homes, whether or not medical staff was on site.
Statistical data displays the difficulty in pinpointing the cause of these fatal errors. In around 30 percent, caregivers did not hear warnings or the alarms were improperly set. In a few cases the alarm was silenced for unknown reasons and in less than 10 percent of events, the problem remains a mystery. Less than one percent of fatalities were caused by ventilator malfunction.
Source: The Boston Globe, "Ventilator errors are linked to 119 deaths," Liz Kowalczyk, Dec. 11, 2011