The Ventilator Who Cried Wolf

Since their introduction in 2002, the Joint Commission’s annual National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs) have included “Improve the effectiveness of communication among caregivers.” We recently published a new white paper on this topic, including a section on critical test results management (if you are interested, you can access the paper here). Now there is discussion about adding another communication-related NPSG: alarm management.

Alarm fatigue is a serious issue. We learned as children the importance of not crying “Wolf!” and raising false alarms¬—it dilutes the effectiveness of real emergencies. With all of the equipment used in hospital rooms today there are frequent beeps, alarms and alerts sounding. Some of our customers are already addressing this issue by using secure text messages to directly notify nurses and physicians when certain alarms or monitoring systems are triggered. 

What are some other ways to help reduce alarm fatigue? What is your institution doing to combat this issue? Are there any new initiatives on the horizon? I’d love to hear about your solutions, please feel free to share!