Abstract

Background: Upwards of 99% of physiological alarms may not require intervention and make monitoring devices unreliable. Over time, the unreliability of monitoring devices creates desensitization and can lead to patient deaths. Alarm management is now a Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal and ECRI Institute has named alarm hazards as the number one of the top 10 health technology hazards.

Objectives: To reduce the number of nuisance physiological alarms in adult patients on the medical intensive care unit.

Methods: A quality improvement process was used that included eliminating inactionable alarms from the default settings, customizing alarms, changing electrocardiography electrodes daily, and standardizing skin preparation.

Results: In the medical intensive care unit, the mean number of nuisance alarms per patient per day decreased from 13 (baseline) to 3, and 81% reduction.

Conclusion: Use of a bundled approach to managing alarms lessened the mean number of alarm signals in a medical intensive care unit.

Jeanine Maine

Author Details

Jeanine Maine, DNP, RN

Sigma Membership

Unknown

Type

DNP Capstone Project

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Quality Improvement

Research Approach

Translational Research/Evidence-based Practice

Keywords:

Alarms, Fatigue, Nuisance, Systems, Monitoring, Clinical Alarms, Physiological Alarms

Advisor

Judith Carrion

Second Advisor

Denise Zabriskie

Third Advisor

Tyah Haro

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Touro University Nevada

Degree Year

2018

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2018-07-03

Full Text of Presentation

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