PROFESSIONAL CAPSTONE

Alarm Fatigue and How to Reduce It

Abstract

Alarm fatigue is a fundamental problem facing healthcare professionals today. It is defined as sensory overload that occurs when healthcare professionals are exposed to the constant noise of medical device alarms, leading to desensitization that results in delayed response or missed alarms altogether (Chromik et al., 2022). The hypothesis statement for the proposed research project is that alarm management training would be beneficial in reducing alarm fatigue as well as the number of false and nuisance alarms at the selected project site. This text presents information to support the above hypothesis statement and outlines the benefits of the proposed project on patients, the facility, business operations, medical professionals, and the society. Evidence from randomized clinical trials, quasi-experimental studies, and integrated reviews shows that staff education would effectively reduce alarm fatigue among nurses, although the greatest effect would be felt when the education program is complemented with other interventions. The proposed project will be beneficial to patients by improving overall patient experience and reducing the risk of alarm-related adverse events. To the facility, the projects benefits will be felt through an improved reputation resulting from improvement patient care. The project will also significantly improve the organizations profits, as well as the psychological well-being, cognitive performance, and overall working conditions of medical professionals. The benefit to the society will be felt when the project findings are used to inform practice change in other healthcare organizations.

Alarm Fatigue and How to Reduce It: Research Project First Submission

The proposed project seeks to reduce alarm fatigue among nurses at the clinical site. Alarm fatigue is sensory overload that occurs when healthcare professionals are exposed to the constant noise of medical device alarms, leading to desensitization that results in delayed response or missed alarms altogether (Chromik et al., 2022). The project hypothesizes that alarm management training or education for healthcare staff would be beneficial in reducing alarm fatigue and the number of false and nuisance alarms. This research project first submission provides evidence to support the above hypothesis statement and outlines ways in which the project findings will be beneficial to patients, the facility, business operations, medical professionals, and the society.

Evidence to Support the Hypothesis Statement

Studies have shown that alarm management training helps reduce alarm fatigue and the risk of missed alarms among healthcare workers. In one randomized controlled-trial carried out in a Chinese hospital involving 93 ICU nurses, the researchers found a significant association between alarm management training and alarm fatigue. The 93 nurses were randomized into the experimental group (47 nurses) and the control group (46 nurses). Nurses in the control group received usual training, while the intervention group received specialized alarm management training in addition to the usual training. Statistics on the number of nonactionable alarms as well as alarm fatigue scores taken before and after the intervention showed significantly fewer nonactionable alarms and lower alarm fatigue scores among those in the intervention group relative to those in the control group.

These findings were replicated by another study, an integrative review, by Nyarko et al. (2022), bringing together 13 studies for review. Results of the reviewed studies showed that educational interventions significantly improved nurses perceptions and attitudes towards alarms, reduced non-actionable and false alarms, and improved alarm management practices. Lewis et al. (2019) also reports similar findings, although the intervention encompasses a range of strategies based on the CEASE bundle developed by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN). CEASE is an innovative, nurse-driven, evidence-based, patient-centered monitoring bundle that enhances patient monitoring through a combination of interventions, including alarm management education, customization of alarm parameters, appropriate monitoring parameters, regular change of ECG electrodes, and suspension of alarms that could produce false alarms during patient care (Lewis et al., 2019). The results of the study showed that implementing the CEASE bundle decreased the occurrence of nuisance alarms by 24 percent and the number of daily alarms by 31 percent (Lewis et al., 2019).

Generally, the literature seems to support the hypothesis that alarm management education is an effective way of reducing the number of nuisance alarms as well as alarm fatigue among nurses.

Benefits of the Project to Patients

The project findings will contribute to improved patient safety...

Benefits to Medical Professionals

Alarm fatigue has a significant negative effect on medical professionals. Nuisance and false alarms affect the working conditions of medical personnel, increasing the risk of mistakes that often lead to adverse events. Medical professionals, who spend most of their time monitoring patients in their care, often have to deal with hundreds of sound signals generated by injection pumps, respirators, monitors, and many other devices (Lewandowska et al., 2020). It is estimated that, on average, a nurse on duty at a mid-size facility will respond to between 150 and 400 alarms per patient (Lewandowska et al., 2020). Unfortunately, a good number of these alarms, between 85 and 90 percent are false or do not require any clinical action (Lewandowska et al., 2020). These false and nuisance alarms cause huge disruptions in patient care and often drive medical professionals to lose trust in the alarm monitoring systems. The proposed project eases the work of medical professionals by educating them on the causes of false and nuisance alarms, and ways of reducing the risk of such. This will reduce the number of alarms to which medical professionals have to respond, thus making them more effective in their response.

Additionally, with a reduced number of alarms, medical professionals face a lower risk of committing alarm-related adverse events. Often times, such adverse events affect medical professionals cognitive performance and lead to psychological trauma, especially when a patient suffers injury or death as a result of ones failure to respond effectively to an alarm. Therefore, the project findings will go a long way towards improving the psychological well-being, cognitive performance, and overall working conditions of medical professionals.

Benefits to Society

The project may not have a huge impact on the society in general. However, its impact on society would be assessed by the social change processes its findings invoke (Baker, 2000). In this regard, the projects benefits to the society will be felt when its findings are published and other healthcare organizations adopt it as a basis for practice change, thus leading to a positive transformation in the society.

Conclusion

In conclusion,…