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- Title
Let's Be Nuisance Free: Reducing Alarm Fatigue in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
- Authors
Kobylecky, Emilia Mary; Welton, Cynthia
- Abstract
Session description: Alarm hazards are a top patient safety concern in healthcare globally, nationally, and locally. Alarms are particularly numerous in the critical care setting and come from a variety of devices such as cardiac monitors, ventilators, dialysis machines, specialty beds and infusion pumps. Excessive alarms can result in a phenomenon called alarm fatigue, which results in delayed recognition and response time to critical alarms. These delays can cause patient harm, increased lengths of stay and death. Nuisance alarms, defined as false or non-actionable alarms account for 80-90% of alarm conditions and are a main contribution to alarm fatigue. Alarm hazards related to cardiac monitors have contributed to two serious patient safety incidents in the ICU at the Credit Valley Hospital site of Trillium Health Partners. These patient safety incidents were the impetus for a quality improvement project to reduce cardiac monitor alarms. The Credit Valley Hospital adult intensive care unit is a 19-bed medical surgical unit that provides continuous monitoring and invasive therapy such as mechanical ventilation and dialysis. Credit Valley Hospital is a regional centre with specializations in renal, maternal, child, and oncology care. Learning outcomes: 1. Enhance understanding and knowledge of the concept/ phenomenon of alarm fatigue. 2. Understand alarm fatigue is a top safety concern in healthcare nationally and globally. 3. Recognize delays in response to clinical alarms can cause patient harm, increased length of stays and death.
- Subjects
FATIGUE (Physiology); INTENSIVE care nursing; MONITOR alarms (Medicine); PATIENT safety; POSTERS
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Critical Care Nursing, 2017, Vol 28, Issue 2, p56
- ISSN
2368-8653
- Publication type
Article