Alarm escalation rules indicate how an alarm is to be handled when the person to whom the alarm has been sent has not responded. Escalation rules can be defined for an entire group, an individual unit, or a specific alarm level.
Important: Alarm escalation rules must be in place before alarms can be sent to a handheld device.
The following can be defined:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Primary Message Delivery | The number of times to retry sending the message before escalation, and the time in seconds to wait between retry attempts. |
| Alarm Reminders Delivery | The number of times reminders are provided (up to 5 per alarm) and the time interval between reminders. |
| Alarm Generation Action | The primary delivery of the alarm immediately on receipt. Choices include: None, Send to Primary Nurse, Send to Secondary Nurse, Send to All Nurses in Unit, and Send to All Nurses in the Group. Select None to not deliver the alarm to any nurse. In the Response Time field, specify the number of seconds after which an alarm is escalated if the people in the specified role do not acknowledge the alarm. |
| Default Alarm Escalation Action | Select the Default Action checkbox to specify a default alarm escalation action. This action defines the process followed if the primary nurse device is not available on the network. Choices include: None, Send to Primary Nurse, Send to Secondary Nurse, Send to All Nurses in Unit, and Send to All Nurses in the Group. |
| Escalation Actions | This defines the escalation tree. If the primary nurse does not acknowledge an alarm in the predefined timeframe (see Response Time above), the system starts escalating alarms from sequence 1 and proceeds up the sequence tree until the last defined sequence is reached, with each step being executed with a delay equal to the Response Time set. If the alarm is acknowledged by any receiver at any point during this escalation process, the server stops executing the escalation tree. |
