Alarm Fatigue – An Ongoing Problem In The Clinical Setting

Alarm fatigue is an ongoing problem in the clinical setting. Healthcare workers become desensitized to the sounds of the alarms, whether they consciously do not hear the alarm or deem it as a less serious matter. For instance, a highly sensitive bed alarm may go off if it senses muscle movement, such as a patient moving their leg under the blankets. An alarm might go off on an ECG monitor because the patient is getting up to use the bathroom. Alarm fatigue can have serious consequences among the healthcare staff and the patients. A delay from the nurses’ reaction to an alarm could be detrimental in some situations, such as a patient going into a seizure or a heart attack. It is important that alarm fatigue be taken seriously and that changes are implemented to help not only the patients, but the staff too.

In this article, Petersen and Costanzo stated that “1,214 alarms sounded during observation, with only 23% being clinically relevant and effective” (2017, p. 36). During the presentation, the group summarized an issue that frequently occurs is that the nurses are unaware of the alarms, are not sure which alarm is going off, or their response time is slower. In the survey statements of Petersen and Costanzo’s article, 58% of the nurse’s surveyed claimed there was a distinction of alarm sounds or visual displays that would help them identify which alarm is going off (Peterson & Costanzo, 2016, p. 40). An implementation that the presentation identified was to include a distinct way of making nurses aware of which alarm was going off, such as using lights. Both the article and presentation correlate in the same respect that alarm fatigue can be a problem that can be averted with the right tools and training. Patients suffer the consequences from alarm fatigue and it is important for nurses to practice alarm safety. Both the presentation and article included helpful insights on what can be done to reduce alarm fatigue including: additional training for the nurses, changing the parameters on the alarms, and visual alarms in correlation with the sounds.

A strength that was identified in this article was the use of open-ended questions to survey the subjects. While there were closed-ended questions too, the subjects were given the chance to give more descriptive answers. Petersen and Costanza (2017), said “descriptive questions were presented in the survey that relate to clinical alarm improvements initiated over the past 2 years… technological changes implemented… and what respondents believe is needed to improve clinical alarm recognition and response” (p. 39). Since closed-ended questions can diminish the accuracy of a study, it is important to give subjects the chance to answer open-ended questions for further information that can be both useful and informational. Another strength about this article is it has a literature review. Past studies were evaluated to help find the research problem. These studies not only identify the research problem, but are helpful in finding the correlation between the current study being done and the studies that have already happened. A literature review is important because it brings together old data and new data that is being studied.

A weakness that comes from this article is that it uses convenience sampling, a method that involves choosing their subjects based on who were the easiest to reach. Petersen and Costanzo (2017) recognized a limitation within their research:

All nurses were employed at a single community institution in Central Nebraska; therefore, results have limited generalizability to further geographic regions and organizations throughout the United States. All nurses represented in this sample were from a critical care unit; thus, specialties throughout the hospital were not represented equally.

This method of obtaining a sample may not be the most reliable as it may become biased. A specific group is being analyzed versus an entire population of nurses. This can cause inaccuracies during the study since not enough populations are being represented. Another weakness is this research study is a 2 on the Matrix of Evidence chart. It is a single descriptive study. This quality of a research can be limited as there is little evidence backing up the results. While a pilot study was done, page 43 cited, “validity of this survey was previously tested in pilot studies by the HTF but could not be measured in this report”. Data collection is based on surveys given to the nurses who respond with their own perceptions to alarm fatigue; whereas, researches observing the nurses in their environment when alarms go off might be held more accountable.

The healthcare setting will likely always put into use of alarms as they help in many ways to identify any changes in a patient’s condition. While it is an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed, alarm fatigue can be significantly reduced with the right resources for the nurses. Healthcare settings need to take the initiative to make changes that will benefit the nurses in reducing alarm fatigue such as providing them in depth training on how to identify certain alarms and how to change their parameters, installing visual alarms, and providing helpful advice on how to keep attentive to the sound of alarms. Changes can be made with the right actions, help, and tools being used to prevent alarm fatigue in the healthcare setting.