Alarm Fatigue And Its Effects

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Recommended: how alarm fatigue affects patient care

Alarm Fatigue
As healthcare workers we are all familiar with the frequent sounding of alarms that occur over and over, every hour of every day, in healthcare facilities. The objective of clinical alarms is to strengthen patient safety by signaling caregivers to alterations in preset parameters being monitored for patient care. When caregivers become negatively affected by the excessive number of alarms, what is known as alarm fatigue can occur. Alarm fatigue can lead to caregivers having less concern with alarms and can be responsible for a total disregard of alarms and/or waiting too long to respond to alarms. This is currently seen as an urgent, growing concern for patient safety. The use of medical devices with alarms is continuously increasing (Sendelbach & Funk, 2013). The multitude of different devices and alarms, presents considerable danger to patient safety. Caregivers who are overburdened with excessive alarms, often have alterations in their workflow which may lead to inaccuracy, interruption, or carelessness (Cvach, 2012). “From 2005-2008 the FDA received 566 reports of patient deaths related to monitoring device alarms” (Cvach, 2012, p. 269). This paper will look at effective clinical alarm management to reduce nuisance alarms, decrease alarm fatigue and increase patient safety.
Medical Alarms
Medical equipment alarms are created and designed to inform caregivers of a critical situation and or a potential complication (Cvach, 2012). One research on alarm incidences revealed 1455 observations of alarms with only 8 being deemed crucial and having the possibility of endangering the patient’s life. With patient safety being a current focal point in healthcare, ineffective alarms are becoming a priority, considering t...

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...ndations for alarms. This information has been broken down to technology, hospital and caregiver actions. Some of the EBP recommendations for technology are to set alarms that allow short delays and standardize the audible alarm sounds. For hospitals they recommend a multidisciplinary team that focuses on alarm reduction, the creation of alarm protocols, providing adequate staffing, on-going education for equipment and alarms, and an overall noise reduction program. Caregivers are recommended to know how to adjust alarms based on each patient’s individual needs, provide proper preparation to skin for monitor attachment, and to record alarm parameters for patients in their medical record (Cvach, 2012). While adverse events can and do occur in relation to alarms, effective alarm management can occur and decrease alarm fatigue leading to an increase in patient safety.

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