Alarm (or alert) fatigue occurs when clinicians ignore alarms, usually due to the majority being invalid or nonactionable, and thus fail to respond or respond more slowly to actionable alerts. The article describes the progress made in reducing nonactionable alarms and making actionable alarms more useful to responding clinicians. Clinical approaches include customization of alert parameters to reduce nonactionable alarms, while engineering solutions include reducing the volume or adjusting the tone of auditory alerts.

… have become accustomed to their frequent occurrence. … Bonafide CP, Miller JM, Localio AR, et al. Association …

Secure text messaging has emerged as one method to improve communication between providers and nurses. This paper discusses concerns over alarm fatigue, communication errors and omitting critical verbal communication and provides proposed solutions to support appropriate and effective use of text messaging in a healthcare setting. 

Handoffs represent a vulnerable time for patients in which inadequate communication between providers can contribute to adverse outcomes. Research has shown that the use of standardized handoff tools not only improves the process but also decreases errors. In this prospective cohort study, researchers implemented a handoff protocol designed to improve handoffs between the operating room and the intensive care unit (ICU) across two surgical ICUs at two hospitals. They examined omission of information across 13 topics contained in the handoff template before and after implementation. Standardization of the handoff process led to a decrease in omitted information and increased the length of time of the handoff. There was no impact on ICU mortality and length of stay. A past PSNet interview discussed implementation of a standardized handoff tool.

The nursing work environment affects patient safety. This cross-sectional study surveyed nearly 2000 pediatric acute care nurses about their work environment and safety culture. Researchers measured the hospital work environment using a validated scale, and they assessed safety using the AHRQ Survey on Patient Safety Culture. A culture of blame and fear of speaking up remained prevalent among nurses participating in this survey. As with prior studies, investigators found an association between a high-functioning work environment and positive safety culture. The authors recommend enhancing pediatric acute care work environments for nurses in order to improve patient safety. A previous PSNet interview discussed how nurse staffing and the work environment can affect patient safety and outcomes.

Standardizing handoffs has been shown to improve patient safety. The authors describe provider perspectives regarding handoffs from the operating room to intensive care unit as well as the development of a standardized OR-to-ICU handoff protocol.

These paired systematic reviews examined alert fatigue in the intensive care unit. The first systematic review found several strategies to reduce alerts including prioritizing alerts, developing multipart rules instead of simple alerts, and customizing commercial platforms with end-user input. The second systematic review found that alarm best practices from high reliability industries are not adhered to in intensive care unit settings.

Missed nursing care is common and has been linked to adverse events. This survey found that more than half of pediatric intensive care unit nurses reported missing care during their prior shift. Higher patient loads and poor working environments were associated with more episodes of missed care, corroborating prior research.

Bedside monitors alert nurses to clinical deterioration. This prospective observational study examined nurse responses to bedside physiologic monitors. The mean response time was over 10 minutes. Less than 1% of alarms were actionable, underscoring the importance of addressing alarm fatigue.

Alarm safety is now a Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal. This systematic review analyzed 24 studies on alarm characteristics and 8 studies that evaluated interventions to improve alert fatigue. Consistent with other studies, the vast majority of the time, alarms do not signal problems that require clinician action. The most promising intervention strategies for reducing alarms that have emerged thus far are widening alarm parameters, implementing alarm delays, and frequently changing telemetry electrodes and wires. A PSNet perspective discussed approaches to reduce alert fatigue while maintaining safety.

Previous studies have documented high frequency of alarms for nurses in intensive care settings. This direct observation study of a pediatric intensive care unit found that response times increased when there were more preceding nonactionable alarms, demonstrating a delay in alarm response due to alarm fatigue. This finding underscores the importance of improving current alarm management.

Researchers used rapid-cycle iterative interventions to improve drug interaction alerts by eliminating clinically irrelevant notifications. These efforts resulted in fewer alerts and fewer manual overrides of alerts without any serious safety events, emphasizing the often cited need to streamline clinical decision support to prevent alarm fatigue.

This focus group study with emergency medical services personnel identified several potential ways to improve the quality of handoffs between paramedics and emergency department staff. A structured handoff tool has been developed to address this known safety hazard.

… of critical deteriorations each year. A prior AHRQ WebM&M perspective discusses early lessons of medical emergency …

In an effort to provide more timely responses to clinical deteriorations, some pediatric medical centers have enabled family members to directly activate medical emergency teams (METs). This study used semistructured interviews to examine physicians' viewpoints on issues related to family-activated METs. Even though the majority of physicians said they depend on families to identify subtle changes in their child's condition, 93% of respondents reported that families should not be able to access the MET directly. Some concerns included families' lack of medical knowledge and training to determine when a MET is necessary, and the belief that this responsibility could provide an undue burden and stress on family members. These tensions are similar to prior discussions about other efforts to engage patients in their own safety during hospitalization.

Despite conflicting evidence of their benefit, rapid response teams have been widely implemented in hospitals to address failure to rescue patients whose clinical status is worsening. This quasi-experimental study compared the trajectory of clinical deterioration among pediatric patients at an urban, tertiary care children's hospital before and after implementing a rapid response intervention. Over a 5-year period, the authors found that rapid response teams significantly improved the trajectory of clinical deterioration compared to the pre-intervention trajectory. They did not find statistically significant differences in rates of cardiac arrests or deaths. An accompanying editorial contends that measuring the trajectory of clinical deterioration does not adequately inform the effectiveness of rapid response systems.

Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals will soon face financial penalties for high readmission rates. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with hospital administrators to outline strategies for reducing unnecessary readmissions.

… an initial diagnostic error is highlighted in an AHRQ WebM&M commentary . …

This study developed the critical deterioration metric to complement existing strategies that evaluate rapid response team performance. The proposed metric is a rate defined as the number of patients transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) and requiring life-sustaining interventions within 12 hours per 1000 non-ICU patient days.

The authors discuss the role of simulation-based training in improving patient safety along with the future of this learning strategy in health care.