ICU Medical Device Error Analysis from Systematic Review

Seventy-two studies published between 2010 and 2025 were synthesized in this systematic review on medical device errors in Intensive Care Units. The review, authored by Zerin Ziaudeen, identifies infusion pumps, syringe pumps, ventilators, and monitoring equipment as major sources of errors. It was conducted following PRISMA guidelines and registered in PROSPERO.

Use Cases

• Analyze the reported prevalence of infusion pump errors, such as the 60% error rate during 133,601 infusion initiations.
• Study false positive alarm rates in monitoring equipment, like the 89% false positive rate among 2.5 million arrhythmia alarms from 461 patients.
• Identify primary error categories cited across studies, including human factors, device design flaws, and system failures.
• Compare error patterns and associated devices (e.g., syringe pumps, ventilators) across adult, pediatric, and neonatal ICU settings.

Strengths

• Synthesizes findings from 72 individual studies, providing a broad evidence base.
• Reports specific, quantified error rates such as 60% for infusion pumps and 89% false alarm rates.

Limitations

• Data is a qualitative synthesis in a 28.5 KB document, not a primary dataset for quantitative modeling.
• The underlying studies may have geographic and methodological biases not fully characterized.

Provenance

Source

Systematic review of literature from 17 databases, registered in PROSPERO (CRD42023424716).

Collection Method

Literature review following PRISMA guidelines.

Time Range

Studies published between 2010 and 2025.

Freshness

Includes studies up to 2025; document last updated in April 2026.