The vital signs monitor can track several different measurements from a patient's body, and sound four different categories of alarms for each measurement as seen here in MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2013. Intensive-care nurses face a cacophony of sounds from medical monitoring equipment, and many of those are false alarms. This can lead to &quotalarm fatigue&quot which puts patients with real problems at risk.