Abstract
Aim: The aim is to evaluate the effects alarm fatigue has on nurses and patients in the cardiac intensive care unit while identifying common causes and hazards of alarm fatigue; and to evaluate solutions for alarm management performance improvement plans. The outcome goal is that with education and interventions, the number of clinical alarms will decrease leading to less feelings of alarm fatigue by both patients and nurses, which will also increase patient safety.|Background: Alarm fatigue in healthcare is experienced when a high frequency of alarms occur over a time period leading to desensitization. Alarm fatigue compromises patient safety as missed alarms can lead to harm or death. In 2014, The Joint Commission issued alarm fatigue as a National Patient Safety Goal and it has been named one of the top 10 health technology hazards by the Emergency Care Research Institute for five consecutive years.|Methods: This study is a descriptive, survey, quality improvement design. Baseline surveys assessed perceptions of alarm fatigue and initial alarm data was collected. The intervention and education period consisted of one-on-one RN education, a video presentation, and implementation of the RN-RN alarm handoff process. Post implementation surveys were completed, and alarm data was recollected. Alarm data and survey results were then analyzed by assessing baseline and post-implementation measures of outcomes relevant to the practice guideline integration.|Results: Nurse and patient perceptions on alarm fatigue were unchanged after examining pre and post survey data. After education and intervention, nurse perception of ease of properly setting alarm parameters was a statistically significant finding (p =.001). No other significant differences in recorded perceptions of RNs or patients, or in clinical alarm data were noted, however after the intervention period, the number of arrhythmia alarms appeared to trend down, parameter alarms appeared to trend up, and technical alarms appeared to remain unchanged.|Conclusion: Significant improvement was noted for nurses in the ease of setting alarm parameters, however, further education and implementation must be done to improve nurse and patient perception of alarm fatigue in the CICU and decrease the number of clinical alarms.|Keywords: alarm fatigue, patient safety, sentinel events