"If you add the inaudible alerts,

“If you add the inaudible alerts, those that signal with flashing lights and text-based messages, there were 2,507,822 unique alarms in one month in our ICUs, the overwhelming majority of them false.”

(This is in 5 parts; the first 4 are up, the 5th should be there “tomorrow”.)

Written very long: the lead story is of a major overdose, caused by a modal interface: dose measured per patient or per kilogram. Non-trivial rules dictate which mode should be used. By coincidence, the patient is just shy of the weight limit where the regime changes - which seems to me another source of error. Of course it’s also true that the very wrong dose was both ordered and administered. Perhaps the error could have been caught at time of preparation or administration: but misdesign has led to alert fatigue and process design leads to constant interruption.

The latter part of the fourth instalment has some comparisons with aviation (who do better than medicine in several ways)

Here’s an NHS paper on such accidents and how to avoid more of them:
http://www.nrls.npsa.nhs.uk/EasySiteWeb/getresource.axd?AssetID=61392