VTaC: A Benchmark Dataset of Ventricular Tachycardia Alarms from ICU Monitors

@article{PhysioNet-vtac-1.1,
  author = {Lehman, Li-wei and Moody, Benjamin and McCullum, Lucas and Saeed, Hasan and Deep, Harsh and Perry, Diane and Struja, Tristan and Li, Qiao and Clifford, Gari and Mark, Roger},
  title = {{VTaC: A Benchmark Dataset of Ventricular Tachycardia Alarms from ICU Monitors}},
  journal = {{PhysioNet}},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  note = {Version 1.1},
  doi = {10.13026/jg2e-tf67},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.13026/jg2e-tf67}
}

@article{pollard_physionet_2026, title = {{PhysioNet} as a global platform for biomedical research}, volume = {1}, issn = {3005-0693}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s44360-026-00096-z}, doi = {10.1038/s44360-026-00096-z}, abstract = {Twenty-five years after its first public repository was established, the PhysioNet resource for biomedical and clinical data has enabled tens of thousands of research papers. Further efforts are ongoing to advance secure data sharing, community engagement and scalable research infrastructure.}, number = {8}, journal = {Nature Health}, author = {Pollard, Tom and Moody, Benjamin E. and Lehman, Li-wei H. and Gow, Brian J. and Fernandes, Chrystinne and Xie, Chen and Johnson, Alistair and Mark, Roger G. and Heldt, Thomas}, month = aug, year = {2026}, pages = {792--795},}

Abstract

False arrhythmia alarms are a persistent problem in intensive care units despite considerable effort from industrial and academic algorithm developers. Among the various arrhythmias, ventricular tachycardia (VT) is particularly challenging to detect accurately, as achieving both high sensitivity and high positive predictivity has proven difficult. We present an annotated VT alarm database, VTaC (Ventricular Tachycardia annotated alarms from ICUs) consisting of over 5,000 labeled waveform recordings with VT alarms triggered by bedside monitors in the ICUs. Each VT alarm in the dataset was labeled as true or false by at least two independent human expert annotators. The dataset comprises data collected from ICUs in three major US hospitals and includes data from three leading bedside monitor manufacturers, providing a diverse and representative collection of VT alarm waveform data. Each waveform recording comprises at least two electrocardiogram (ECG) leads and one or more pulsatile waveforms, such as photoplethysmogram (PPG or PLETH) and arterial blood pressure (ABP) waveforms. The current release includes over 17,000 waveform recordings, expanding the initial labeled VTaC release with additional waveform data from unlabeled VT alarm events.

Background

Bedside monitors in ICUs have produced a significant volume of alarms, a considerable proportion of which are false alarms [1,2,3,4]. False arrhythmia alarms in intensive care units (ICUs) pose a significant challenge, leading to alarm fatigue among healthcare providers and potentially compromising patient care. These false alarms not only contribute to increased cognitive load on clinicians but also have the potential to mask true arrhythmias, thereby endangering patient safety. Ventricular tachycardia (VT) alarms are among the most frequently occurring life-threatening arrhythmia alarms [1], and false VT alarms have proven to be the most difficult to detect reliably [3,4,5,6,7].

Several annotated VT alarm waveform datasets have been made publicly available. For instance, Aboukhalil et al. [5] developed false arrhythmia alarm reduction algorithms using 1,900 annotated VT alarms from the MIMIC II database [8]. The PhysioNet Challenge 2015 dataset includes a total of 562 annotated VT alarms, with 341 alarms in the training set and 221 in the test set [3,4,9].

While previous algorithms [3,4,5,6,7] show promise in identifying false arrhythmia alarms, their effectiveness has often been evaluated or developed using single, small, or relatively homogeneous datasets. This limitation hinders their generalizability and real-world applicability. The introduction of this annotated VT alarm dataset offers a valuable opportunity to overcome this challenge. By encompassing data from diverse sources, this dataset enables the evaluation and refinement of algorithms in a broader context, spanning a wider range of monitoring devices and clinical settings.

Methods

We extracted and compiled a dataset of 18,465 VT alarm waveform events, derived from 2,376 unique patient waveform records from bedside monitors produced by three leading commercial vendors [10]. These records were sourced from multiple ICUs across three major U.S. hospitals, ensuring a diverse and representative collection of waveform data. Each recording in our dataset consists of a 10-minute segment surrounding the onset of the ventricular tachycardia (VT) alarm, capturing 5 minutes of waveform data before the alarm and 5 minutes after. To maintain diversity, we randomly selected up to five alarm events from any individual patient record, resulting in a total of 5,742 events for annotation. This approach ensures a balanced sampling of events across different patient records, avoiding the over-representation of any single record. All waveform records were de-identified to remove identifiable information such as patient names, dates, and medical record numbers. The signals were uniformly resampled to 250 Hz, and all signal labels were standardized to align with the nomenclature used in the PhysioNet Challenge 2015 database [3,4,9].

Annotation Process

Following the PhysioNet Challenge 2015, a VT episode is defined as five or more consecutive ventricular beats with heart rate higher than 100 beats-per-minute (bpm) [3,9]. Expert annotators were randomly assigned batches of VT alarms to annotate. Each VT alarm event was reviewed and labeled by at least two annotators independently. Annotation was performed using an open-source annotation platform, PhysioTag [11,12], which enables experts to collaboratively annotate physiological waveform records using a standard web browser. Please see [11] for a detailed description of the annotation platform, and an illustrative example of the user interface for annotating the VT alarms. For our task, annotators were given the options of “True” for when they believe the alarm was correct, “False” for when they believe the alarm was incorrect, “Uncertain” for when they were unsure which annotation to assign, “Reject” for when the alarm was unreadable due to noise, artifacts, or other reasons. In order to reconcile conflicts between two annotator decisions, an adjudication process was implemented to resolve the conflicts. These disagreements were resolved either through direct one-on-one discussions between the annotators involved or by an adjudicator’s vote to break the tie. The annotation team consists of six annotators, including an arrhythmia analysis expert physician and a highly experienced board-certified cardiac arrhythmia technician. The team also includes three clinicians and one biomedical signal processing engineer specializing in arrhythmia.

A total of 5,742 events were annotated by at least two independent annotators. Two independent annotators reached unanimous decisions on 4,534 (78.96%) events, whereas 21.04% (N=1,208) of the events received conflicting labeling decisions by two human annotators. Among the events with conflicting decisions, 816 (66.55%) were adjudicated. After removing 392 un-adjudicated events, a total of 5,350 alarm events received final labeling decisions. After excluding "Rejected" and "Uncertain" events, the final dataset in this release contains 5,037 events.

Data Description

The VTaC dataset [10] contains 5,037 annotated VT alarm events, among which 1,441 (28.61%) are true alarms. The VT alarms were automatically generated by commercial patient bed-side monitors from ICUs of three major US hospitals. Each waveform record in the current release consists of a 6-minute segment that encompasses the onset of the VT alarm. This segment includes 5 minutes of waveform data preceding the alarm onset and 1 minute following it. Thus, the alarm onset is at the end of the 5 minute mark of each waveform record in the file folder. Each waveform recording contains ECG leads and one or more pulsatile waveforms (photoplethysmogram and/or arterial blood pressure waveforms). All signals were uniformly resampled to 250 Hz. For a more detailed description of the VTaC dataset, please see [10].

The waveform files corresponding to the 5,037 annotated VT alarm events (in the annotated_waveforms folder) are stored in WFDB format [13], the PhysioNet recommended format for waveform recordings. The data are organized based on patient waveform records where each sub-folder represents a patient waveform record. Each sub-folder contains up to five waveform records, each corresponds to a VT alarm event selected from that patient record.

The final labeling decisions for each of the VT alarm events are listed in the CSV file event_labels.csv. Each row represents the final labeling decision corresponding to a VT alarm. The first column record contains the patient waveform record name, and the event column contains the unique event name corresponding to a VT alarm in the patient waveform record. As a part of the de-identification, all waveform record and event names are randomly generated surrogate names. In this dataset, a patient waveform record can have up to five VT alarm events. The column decision contains the final decision of the human annotator for the corresponding VT alarm.

The CSV file benchmark_data_split.csv contains the train/validation/test set split used by machine learning algorithms for VT false alarm reduction in [10].

The CSV file event_label_per_annotator.csv contains the per-annotator label for each event. Each row represents a VT alarm labeling decision by an individual expert annotator. The column annotator contains the unique ID of an expert annotator. The column record contains the patient waveform record name, and the event column contains the unique event name corresponding to a VT alarm in the patient waveform record. The column decision contains the final decision of the human annotator for the corresponding VT alarm. Each event was annotated by at least two expert annotators. Events that received conflicting labeling decisions from two independent annotators receive a third labeling decision from a human-expert adjudicator. The is_adjudication column indicates whether this decision corresponds to an adjudication decision.

In this updated release (version 1.1), we have added additional unlabeled waveform records. The waveforms folder now contains a total of 17,131 waveform records (from 2,157 patients), each corresponding to a 6-minute waveform segment around a VT alarm event, including 5 minutes before and 1 minute after the VT alarm. A subset of these records, overlapping with those in the annotated_waveforms folder, were annotated, with their true- versus false-alarm labels provided in the event_labels.csv file. Specifically, the waveforms folder includes patient waveform records assigned to the Train and Validation sets from the original VTaC release (as specified in benchmark_data_split.csv), overlapping with those in the annotated_waveforms folder, while also containing additional unlabeled VT alarm events from the same patient records. Unlabeled waveform records from patient waveform records assigned to the Test Set (as specified in benchmark_data_split.csv) are withheld and not included in this folder.

Usage Notes

This dataset is intended for developing algorithms for false arrhythmia alarm reduction. Please cite [10] when using this dataset. Code and scripts for machine learning algorithms presented in VT false alarm reduction reported in [10] can be found at the project GitHub website [14].

The unlabeled waveform data in VTaC v1.1 supports benchmarking of self-supervised learning methods in [16].

The VTaC dataset is distinct from the MIMIC-II Waveform Database [17], although some waveform records could potentially overlap with the MIMIC-III Waveform Database [18].

A limitation of this dataset is the absence of detailed clinical information accompanying the waveform recordings. We leave the collection of matched clinical data for future research endeavors.

To visualize the waveform records, please click on the "Visualize Waveform" button above the file panel, and select the records and events of interest to display. The WFDB Python package [15] can be used to load the waveform records in WFDB format.

Release Notes

Version 1.1 This release includes the event_label_per_annotator.csv file, containing the per-annotator label for each VT alarm event. Additionally, we have expanded the waveform records to include unlabeled records that were not included in the initial release of the labeled VTaC dataset.

Version 1.0 First release of the VTaC dataset (Version 1.0). August 2024. This initial release of the VTaC dataset included waveform records from 5,037 annotated VT alarm events.

Ethics

This dataset is a compilation of patient waveforms sourced from multiple institutions, and the process of collecting this data has received approval from the respective Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) of each participating institution. The project was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA). Requirement for individual patient consent was waived because the project did not impact clinical care and all protected health information was deidentified.

Acknowledgements

This research is funded by NIH Grant NIH R01 EB030362.

Conflicts of Interest

None.

References

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