Configuring Vital Alerts

This tutorial guides you through setting up vital sign alert thresholds, configuring notification delivery channels, testing with a sample reading, and managing the alert acknowledge workflow. Properly configured alerts ensure clinicians are notified immediately when a patient's vitals fall outside safe ranges.

Step 1: Understand Alert Types

Vantrexia uses a three-tier alert severity system. Each incoming vital reading is evaluated against the patient's configured thresholds and classified accordingly:

Step 2: Navigate to Threshold Settings

1. From the Patients list, click on the patient's name to open their detail page.
2. Click the Thresholds tab (between "Vitals" and "Devices").
3. You'll see the current thresholds table. If this is a newly enrolled patient, default values will be populated. Click Edit Thresholds to modify.

Step 3: Set Blood Pressure Thresholds

Blood pressure has four configurable threshold parameters. Set each value based on your patient's clinical profile:

Step 4: Set Other Vital Thresholds

Beyond blood pressure, configure thresholds for additional monitored vitals:

Weight Change

Oxygen Saturation (SpO2)

Click Save Thresholds after configuring all values.

Step 5: Configure Notification Preferences

1. Navigate to the patient detail page, then click the Notifications tab.
2. Configure notification channels for each alert severity:

3. Assign the Primary Clinician who will receive notifications for this patient.
4. Optionally add a Backup Clinician who receives notifications if primary doesn't acknowledge within the configured escalation window (default: 30 minutes for critical).
5. Click Save Notification Preferences.

Step 6: Test with a Sample Reading

1. Navigate to the device simulator at /dev/simulator (dev mode only), or have the patient take a reading on their device.
2. Submit a reading that exceeds the warning threshold — for example, systolic: 152 mmHg, diastolic: 88 mmHg.
3. Within seconds, you should observe:
   • A Warning badge appears on the patient's row in the patient list.
   • The reading appears in the Vitals tab with an amber highlight.
   • A new entry appears in the Triage Queue on the dashboard.
   • The assigned clinician receives a push notification and email (if configured).
4. Now test a critical reading — submit systolic: 185 mmHg, diastolic: 95 mmHg.
5. Verify a Critical alert fires with immediate push, email, and SMS notifications.

Step 7: Acknowledge Workflow

When an alert fires, it enters the triage queue and must be handled by a clinician. The acknowledge workflow has three stages:

1. Review: The clinician opens the alert from the Triage Queue. The alert status changes from new to in_review. The reading details, patient history, and trend data are displayed.
2. Acknowledge: After reviewing the data, the clinician clicks Acknowledge and optionally adds a clinical note (e.g., "Patient reports feeling fine, BP elevated due to missed medication. Advised to resume lisinopril."). Status changes to acknowledged.
3. Escalate (if needed): If the reading requires intervention, click Escalate instead. This notifies the supervising physician and creates a follow-up task. Status changes to escalated. The clinician documents the escalation reason.

API: Set Thresholds via REST

Use the thresholds endpoint to programmatically set or update vital thresholds for a patient:

curl -X PUT https://app.vantrexia.com/api/v1/patients/{patient_id}/vital-config/f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "blood_pressure": {
      "systolic_high": 140,
      "systolic_low": 90,
      "diastolic_high": 90,
      "diastolic_low": 60,
      "systolic_critical_high": 180,
      "diastolic_critical_high": 120
    },
    "weight": {
      "weight_change_pct": 3.0,
      "weight_change_weekly_pct": 5.0
    },
    "spo2": {
      "spo2_low": 92,
      "spo2_critical_low": 88
    },
    "notifications": {
      "critical": ["push", "email", "sms"],
      "warning": ["push", "email"],
      "normal": ["dashboard"]
    }
  }'

A successful response returns 200 OK with the updated thresholds object:

{
  "patient_id": "f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479",
  "blood_pressure": {
    "systolic_high": 140,
    "systolic_low": 90,
    "diastolic_high": 90,
    "diastolic_low": 60,
    "systolic_critical_high": 180,
    "diastolic_critical_high": 120
  },
  "weight": {
    "weight_change_pct": 3.0,
    "weight_change_weekly_pct": 5.0
  },
  "spo2": {
    "spo2_low": 92,
    "spo2_critical_low": 88
  },
  "updated_at": "2026-02-06T11:45:00Z",
  "updated_by": "dr.smith@clinic.com"
}