Alarm burden and the nursing care environment: a 213-hospital cross-sectional study.
Ruppel H, Dougherty M, Bonafide CP, et al. Alarm burden and the nursing care environment: a 213-hospital cross-sectional study. BMJ Open Qual. 2023;12(4):e002342. doi:10.1136/bmjoq-2023-002342.
Alarm fatigue can lead to desensitization to safety alerts and threaten patient safety. In this survey of 3,986 registered nurses, the majority (83%) reported alarm fatigue and over half (55%) experienced a situation where an alarm went unchecked despite a patient requiring urgent attention. The researchers found that alarm burden was more common among respondents who rated their hospital’s safety as poor or reported poor work environments.