Charité Pre-Hackathon - Challenges of Patient Monitoring and Alarm Management: Institute of Medical Informatics - Charité

On July 6, 2022, the Institute of Medical Informatics and its partners successfully conducted the "Charité Pre-Hackathon: Challenges of Patient Monitoring and Alarm Management". At the event, which was held in hybrid form (face-to-face and online), the approximately 40 participants succeeded in extracting relevant problems from everyday clinical practice, thus laying the foundation for a big data-/hackathon at the Charité.

The main focus was on the aspects of patient monitoring and alarm management. After a brief introduction by Dr. med. Akira-Sebastian Poncette, head of the Patient Monitoring and Alarm Management research group, and the presentation of the individual clusters, the work began. In a total of four clusters, the participants addressed the following questions:

Patient Monitoring: What does future patient monitoring look like?
Alarm Management: What does future alarm management look like?
What clinical questions can be answered with an ICU alarm dataset?
How can we prepare an ICU alarm database for a hackathon?

From the ideas and suggestions that arose in the course of the discussion in the individual small groups, central questions or visions were formulated at the end to be addressed soon in the context of a big data-/hackathon at Charité. The following is a brief compilation of the results from the various clusters (the illustration with the results can be found at the end of the article as a pdf file for download):

In Cluster 1, led by Louis Agha-Mir-Salim and Lina Mosch of the Patient Monitoring and Alarm Management research group, participants addressed the question of what ideal vital sign monitoring systems might look like in 20 years.

Cluster 2, led by Maximilian M. Wunderlich of the Patient Monitoring and Alarm Management research group, discussed in an intensive exchange which requirements the alarm management system of the future will have to fulfill. The characteristics that were jointly agreed upon can be found in the graphic, which shows the results of all clusters.

In the third cluster, led by Julian Beimes from idalab, questions were developed around the topic of alarms in the intensive care unit, which can be answered with the data set from the research project INALO. These include, for example, the question of the extent to which storage has an influence on the occurrence of alarms. Other relevant data points were also identified, which could also be included in the INALO data set, such as the vigilance and orientation of the patients.

In Cluster 4, which was moderated by Anne Flint of the Patient Monitoring and Alarm Management research group, the small group also dealt with alarm data sets. Specifically, the group discussed which steps are necessary in the preparation of a big data-/hackathon so that the data sets can be used optimally.

After almost 90 minutes of intensive work in the small groups, the clusters presented their results in the large group. Some aspects were discussed in a focused manner, and the exchange in the large group enabled further perspectives to be added, thus making the results even more comprehensive.

With these results, the groups were able to formulate challenges that could be the basis of a future data-/hackathon. The challenges integrate all identified hurdles that currently prevent future-oriented patient monitoring, and we hope that together we have come a little closer to our vision for patient monitoring and alarm management of the future. After the substantive work, the participants enjoyed a relaxed evening with nice conversations and delicious pizza.

The next roundtable will be held on September 29, 2022 at 6 pm on the topic of tele-surveillance. Registration is already possible here. A hybrid format is planned again, and unlike the pre-hackathon, we will use a room at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), which is well equipped for hybrid event formats. For organizational reasons, we ask for re-registration even if you have participated before.

The pre-hackathon was part of the Patient Monitoring Roundtable event series. The event series is organized by the Institute of Medical Informatics at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in cooperation with Hacking Health Berlin and INCH e.V. (Initiative for Collaboration and Innovation in Healthcare e.V.).
The pre-hackathon was funded by Stiftung Charité.