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Understanding Clinical Alarm Systems

Clinical alarm systems are intended to alert caregivers of patient problems but can compromise safety if not properly managed. Issues include too many alarms from different devices, default settings that are not actionable, and narrow alarm limits not tailored to patients. Improperly managed alarms can desensitize staff and cause them to miss or ignore alarms. Hospitals must understand their specific alarm issues and develop systematic, coordinated alarm management approaches. Standardization helps but solutions may need to be customized to specific units or patients. Leaders identify the most important alarms to manage based on input from staff, device data on false alarms, risk to patients, and published guidelines.

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254 views

Understanding Clinical Alarm Systems

Clinical alarm systems are intended to alert caregivers of patient problems but can compromise safety if not properly managed. Issues include too many alarms from different devices, default settings that are not actionable, and narrow alarm limits not tailored to patients. Improperly managed alarms can desensitize staff and cause them to miss or ignore alarms. Hospitals must understand their specific alarm issues and develop systematic, coordinated alarm management approaches. Standardization helps but solutions may need to be customized to specific units or patients. Leaders identify the most important alarms to manage based on input from staff, device data on false alarms, risk to patients, and published guidelines.

Uploaded by

Patient Safety My
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Understanding Clinical Alarm systems

Intent of COP.3.1
Clinical alarm systems are intended to alert caregivers of potential patient problems,
but if they are not properly managed, they can compromise patient safety. There are
several underlying issues associated with alarm management that can increase the
risk to patient safety. Issues associated with alarm management include too many
devices with alarms, default settings that are not at an actionable level, and alarm
limits that are too narrow or not tailored to the patient’s condition. Many patient
care areas have numerous alarm signals, and the recurrent noise from improperly
managed alarms tends to desensitize staff and cause them to miss or ignore alarm
signals or even disable them. These issues vary greatly among hospitals and even
within different wards in a single hospital. It is important for a hospital to understand
its own situation and to develop a systematic, coordinated approach to clinical alarm
system management. (Also see QPS.10)
Standardization contributes to safe alarm system management, but it is recognized
that alarm management solutions may have to be designed for specific clinical units,
groups of patients, or individual patients. For example, the most common alarms to
address in an adult cardiac population would be cardiac monitoring, and in labor and
delivery fetal monitoring alarms may be the most common. In designing customized
solutions for proper alarm management, leaders begin by identifying the most
important alarm signals to manage. Consideration of the following can be helpful in
determining alarm signals that may pose a risk to patient safety:
 Input from the medical staff and clinical departments
 Data from medical devices on which alarms are causing false or nonactionable
alarms that could impact specific patient populations
 Risk to patients if the alarm signal is not attended to or if it malfunctions
 Whether specific alarm signals are needed or unnecessarily contribute to
alarm noise and alarm fatigue
 Potential for patient harm based on internal incident history
 Published best practices and guidelines (Also see QPS.3)
When the alarms posing a risk to patient safety have been identified, along with the
locations and situations under which these alarms are used, strategies are developed
that address the following:
a) Clinically appropriate settings for alarm signals
b) Situations in which alarm signals can be disabled
c) Circumstances under which alarm parameters can be changed
d) Identification of those who have the authority to set alarm parameters
e) Designation of those who have the authority to change alarm parameters

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