Alarm fatigue, or failing to notice/ignoring an alarm, is a growing cause of concern in healthcare facilities across the country, and anesthesiologists can help further the effort to develop customized alarm management policies in healthcare centers, according to an Anesthesia Business Consultants blog post.
Here are four points:
1. Missing alarms led the ECRI Institute's list of Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for five years, and it is now at the No. 2 spot.
2. Anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists rely on an array of monitors and alerts to care for their patients in the operating room and in the critical care unit.
3. As hospitals look to mitigate the negative effects of alarm fatigue, anesthesiologists can help create and maintain an alarm management policy.
4. An Anesthesia Quality Institute-Anesthesia Incident Reporting System case report gives some examples of recommendations in an anesthesia alarm management policy:
• Establish an appropriate default anesthesia alarm volume so that the alert will always be loud enough to hear.
• Train anesthesia technicians and others who could turn off phantom alarms during case turnover to reduce alarm desensitization.
• Set specific alarm settings appropriate for the individual patient and case.