Hospitals need to address alarm fatigue
When people go into the hospital, they expect that the staff
there will attend to their needs and help them recover. Many people
feel safer in hospitals than at home when they are ill, given the
availability of health care workers who can respond should a crisis
arise and medical technology that can help monitor their
conditions. However, a phenomenon known as “alarm fatigue” can set
in among health care workers, where they fail to take action when
an alarm sounds on a medical device. Alarm fatigue happens because
they hear so many alarms during their shifts, and the alarms often
do not signal emergencies. As a result, when an alarm actually
means a patient is in crisis, hospital staff members do not act —
and patients suffer. The Joint Commission released a proposal to
help hospitals address the issue of alarm fatigue in January
2013.
On-going problem
The problem of alarm fatigue is not new. The Joint Commission,
the organization that accredits hospitals in the U.S., originally
made the issue of responding to alarms part of its National Patient
Safety Goals for 2004. The Joint Commission believed that hospitals
had effectively solved the problem of alarm fatigue, but further
research into the issue revealed that hospital staff members were
still ignoring alarms, and patients had died as a result. A
Healthcare Technology Foundation survey showed that one in five
hospitals polled had recorded an avoidable injury or death
due to inattention to alarms.
The ECRI Institute, a non-profit organization devoted to
increasing the safety and quality of health care, issues an annual
report regarding the top 10 health risks that patients face from
health care technology in the coming year. ECRI cited alarm fatigue
as the top health technology risk for patients on its 2013
list.
Joint Commission proposal
In response to the threat to patient safety, the Joint
Commission has made responding to alarms part of its National
Patient Safety Goals for 2014. The Joint Commission released a
proposed plan for hospitals and is inviting comments on it from
health care professionals until February 26, 2013. Under the
proposed plan, a hospital’s accreditation would depend on the
leaders prioritizing alarm safety by inventorying all alarms in the
hospital, eliminating unnecessary alarms and educating staff about
the hospital’s alarm response policies.
Talk to an attorney
Patients rely on hospital staff to react when patients are in
distress. When health care workers erroneously
assume an alarm does not signal a true emergency, patients suffer
unnecessarily. If you have been injured due to a health care
worker’s negligence, speak with an experienced medical malpractice
lawyer with substantial experience handling these complex cases. An
attorney can help you recover a fair settlement for your
losses.
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Hospitals need to address alarm fatigue
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