Hiya,
Looks to me like the role of secondary alarms is currently limited to passing on patient monitoring alarms and info to someone whos remote from the patient. Current monitoring systems cant possibly give all of the info that the operator needs to send to a Dr or other specialist whos offsite for a second opinion and its little use in an emergency anyhow.
Use of secondary alarm system seems irrelevant to me if the person whos remote cannot interact with the alarm source or intervene with the patient (such as in an emergency). The reason why the interoperability of secondary alarms and patient monitoring is being restricted is probably in the interests of patient safety in fact.
With the current level of implementation thats allowed then all relaying alarm information and receiving feedback achieves is the same as a bleep and probably not as useful as a telephone call. Research into existing patient monitoring systems how alarms work together and how their used is probably the way to go to reduce false positives, etc.
Thinking about the way alarms tend to be used in critical care areas I've worked in the UK then having a secondary alarm system that can override the patient monitor and produce its own alarms, that can be controlled remotely to the operator whos onsite, is just asking for trouble! Such a system is a step too far currently IMO unless its a central station in the clinical area.
