Understanding the GE Carescape System Components

The GE Carescape system may use telemetry packs, bedside monitors, and message logs when integrated with Vocera Platform.

GE Carescape Telemetry Packs

Alarm text received from the telemetry pack may differ from the same condition on the bedside monitors. For instance, the telemetry pack may send through text of "HR HI 259" and "HR LO 36", including actual values, as opposed to more simple condition text always seen from the bedside monitors.

The telemetry pack may have multiple codes for a "leads fail" event: LEADS FAIL and LF: NO TELEM.

The telemetry pack has a call button on it that the patient can push which results in an alarm with the text message "NURSE CALL". Unlike the other alarms, this message is only ever sent a single time. The text of any alarm that is not received continuously throughout the duration of the event should be configured in the Alarm Reset Exceptions field in the Vocera Carescape Adapter.

GE Carescape Message Logs

The Vocera Carescape Adapter will retain a log of all alarm messages received for a period of 50 hours. A separate log file is created each hour, and the oldest log file is deleted when a new file is created. Log files can be found on the appliance under /opt/EXTENSION/log/Carescape/<ReferenceName>. The most recent log file is named AlarmPackets.log and older logs will be compressed and named with a timestamp suffix. These logs contain the raw hexadecimal format of each message received.