This document outlines recommended alarm parameter settings for monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, pulse oximetry, and cardiac dysrhythmias in adult patients. It provides upper and lower limit alarm settings based on a patient's baseline values for heart rate and blood pressure. All pulse oximetry should be set to alarm at 90% oxygen saturation or lower. Specific cardiac dysrhythmia alarms are listed, with settings for conditions like asystole, ventricular fibrillation, tachycardia, and bradycardia.

1. Created by Scott Fylling
Alarm Safety Working Group: Alarm Parameter Settings
Heart Rate Parameters: applies only to the hemodynamically stable adult patient without change in
cognitive function and compares against their baseline values.
Upper Alarm Limit 100 100 100 100 100 100 110 120 130 130
Patient’s Baseline Rate 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 100 110 120
Lower Alarm Limit 50 55 60 60 60 60 60 60 70 80
Blood Pressure Alarm Parameters:
 Hypertension is defined as a systolic blood pressure greater than 140mmHg or 30mmHg higher
than the patient’s baseline blood pressure (American College of Cardiology).
 Hypotension is defined as a systolic blood pressure less than 90mmHg or a systolic blood
pressure 30mmHg lower than the patient’s baseline blood pressure.
All Pulse Oximetry: set alarm at 90%.
Individual Alarm Parameters: set as defaults
Dysrhythmia Alarm Setting Recall Dysrhythmia Record
Asystole These
Ventricular Fibrillation are not
Ventricular Tachycardia modifiable
Extreme tachycardia Off ON Off
Extreme bradycardia Off ON Off
VPC Run: set at 3 beats ON ON ON
Tachycardia: per table above ON ON ON
Bradycardia: per table above ON ON ON
Couplets Off ON Off
Early PVC Off ON Off
Multifocal PVC ON ON ON
Bigeminy Off ON Off
Frequent PVC: set at 10/minute ON ON ON
Prolonged R-R interval off ON off
Upper Alarm
Limit
120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 170 170 170 170 170 170
Patient’s
Baseline
Systolic
Pressure
90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160
Lower Alarm
Limit
80 85 90 90 90 90 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130
Upper Alarm Limit 80 85 90 90 90 95 100 105 110 110 110 115 120
Patient’s Baseline Diastolic
Pressure
50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110
Lower Alarm Limit 40 45 50 55 60 60 60 60 60 65 70 75 80