A proven safety risk
Alarm fatigue
More than just a nuisance
The proliferation of alarms generated by monitoring systems is a growing concern for anyone committed to patient safety. Exposure to excess alarms in care settings, especially non-actionable alarms, can result in desensitization among the clinicians that they are intended to alert, a syndrome called alarm fatigue.
Alarm fatigue can lead to reflexive silencing of alarms, breaking monitoring protocols and missing true positive alarms—placing a burden on caregivers and jeopardizing their ability to care for patients.
When an alarm goes off you want to make sure it is clinically relevant.”
Ineke van de Pol
ICU nurse practitioner, St. Antonius Hospital, The Netherlands
An insider’s view of
alarm overload
For short-staffed nurses, false alarms are more than annoyances. Most nurses say they are affected by alarm fatigue, 1 which can cause stress, depression, reduced productivity and burnout. This video attempts to illustrate what it’s like to care for a patient in today’s alarm-filled environment.
Watch
and listen
Turn on your sound to get the full experience
A quick survey
Taking alarm management from concept to reality
Discover where you stand when it comes to alarm management. We invite you to participate in this survey taking alarm management from concept to reality.* * All data will remain anonymous.
Excessive false alerts
impact a hospital on many levels
Clinical
Missing actionable alarms jeopardizes patient safety.
Financial
Patient harm as a result of over-alarming can have costly repercussions from transfers to the ICU, extended length of stay and litigation.
Technical
The lack of alarm customization for individual patients can create excessive nuisance alarms.
Operational
About 10% of nursing time is lost responding to non-actionable alarms.
Growth A stressful, noise-filled work environment can contribute to staff burnout.
Regulatory
Non-compliance can be costly, as health care moves from volume to value-based care models.
5 key facts about alarm fatigue
When you consider that patients, staff and families may be exposed to up to 700 alarms a day, 2 it’s no surprise that alarm fatigue is a serious problem. Yet few hospitals have comprehensive programs to manage “alarm pollution” and there is no clear evidence-based practice because no two patients or units are exactly the same. Understanding the scope of the problem is an important first step. Start by educating yourself and your colleagues with these facts from recent research.
Tell us a little about yourself and download the 2-pager.
Alarm management 101
Alarms are a good thing… aren’t they? Raise your team’s awareness about alarm fatigue with this module from a Philips alarm management consultant.
This downloadable and video drills down into the root causes and impact of the problem and shares research on how it is currently perceived.
Register to access the free online module.
Subscribe
Become the alarm advocate in your unit. Now!
Tell us a little about yourself and receive 3 emails with material that can help you raise awareness about alarm management at your hospital.
Alarm management:
become the expert
Philips is
here to help
The price for patients Find out why you should protect your patients
What drives alarm fatigue? Discover new facts and approaches for making effective change
Get some practical guidance Success stories, exclusive case studies and proven solutions
Footnotes: [1] Juniper Consulting. Junicon Web Survey, 2012. [2] Cvach, M., "Monitor Alarm Fatigue: An Integrative Review", Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology, July/August 2012, pp. 268-277.
