LAUSR

A care clinicians’ exposure to excessive numbers of alarms, particularly those that are of no clinical importance or are false, results in sensory overload and a subsequent desensitization to those alarms. When desensitization occurs, alarm response may be delayed or absent. Patient deaths or other unfavorable outcomes can occur when serious clinical events detected by cardiac monitors or pulse oximeters are perceived as false, not acted upon with appropriate haste, or missed entirely. According to studies in physiologic monitor alarms for adults and children, 89% to 99% of electrocardiographic (ECG) monitor alarms are clinically insignificant or false.1,2 To date, strategies to reduce alarms and the resulting fatigue have focused on the ECG and oxygen saturation alarms resulting in limited evidence existing to guide practice, particularly for pediatric patients. To minimize alarm fatigue successfully, units must analyze factors leading to alarm burden and select interventions that address those factors.