Valehäired

Valehäired on Estonian term, used to describe false or spurious alarms and disturbances that are triggered without a corresponding real event. Etymologically, vale means false and häire means alarm or disturbance. The concept appears in various fields to refer to alerts that arise from noise, miscalibration, or technical glitches rather than from an actual incident.

In engineering and technology valehäired occur when sensors or algorithms generate alerts due to environmental noise, sensor drift, faulty connections, or communication errors. Examples include motion sensors reacting to non-threats, fire or gas alarms triggered by steam or high humidity, or process-control alarms caused by transient fluctuations. Such false alarms can undermine system reliability, waste resources, and erode trust in monitoring networks.

In healthcare and medical monitoring, valehäired describe false alarms produced by patient monitors, wearable devices, or diagnostic tools. They contribute to alarm fatigue among clinicians and may delay response to genuine emergencies. Causes include patient movement, poor electrode or sensor contact, cable disconnections, or misinterpretation of physiological signals by an algorithm.

Mitigation of valehäired involves improvements in hardware and software, such as higher-quality sensors, multi-parameter verification, more appropriate alert thresholds, noise reduction, redundancy, and staff training. Ongoing calibration and tuning of systems, along with careful workflow integration, help minimize unnecessary alerts while preserving patient and operator safety.

See also: false positive, alarm fatigue, signal processing.