“Alarms are specifically designed to cause cognitive distress and capture the attention of clinicians’ caring for multiple patients to a change warranting clinician awareness, closer assessment, and supportive intervention. In the current monitor paradigm with existing widely distributed technology, clinicians must interrupt a task when an alarm activates, identify the patient and device alarming, determine if it is actionable or non-actionable, and the type of action required. Alarm fatigue occurs when non-actionable alarms are in the majority, and clinicians develop decreased reactivity, causing them to “tune out” or ignore the alarms.”

Click to enlarge image.

Fig. 2. Summary of the causes of alarm fatigue along the monitoring care continuum of patient, monitor, alarm pathway, clinician and organization, and current and future potential solutions.

Hravnak, Marilyn,et.al. (2018). A call to alarms: Current state and future directions in the battle against alarm fatigue. Journal of Electrocardiology., 51(6S), S44-S48.

Additional resources:

Paine, C., Goel, V., Ely, E., Stave, C., Stemler, S., Zander, M., & Bonafide, C. (n.d.). Systematic Review of Physiologic Monitor Alarm Characteristics and Pragmatic Interventions to Reduce Alarm Frequency. Journal of Hospital Medicine., 11(2), 136-144.

Ruppel, H., De Vaux, L., Cooper, D., Kunz, S., Duller, B., & Funk, M. (2018). Testing physiologic monitor alarm customization software to reduce alarm rates and improve nurses’ experience of alarms in a medical intensive care unit. PloS One., 13(10), E0205901.

Nguyen, H., Jang, S., Ivanov, R., Bonafide, C., Weimer, J., & Lee, I. (2018). Reducing Pulse Oximetry False Alarms Without Missing Life-Threatening Events. Smart Health, 9-10, 287-296.

Sendelbach, S., Wahl, S., Anthony, A., & Shotts, P. (n.d.). Stop the Noise: A Quality Improvement Project to Decrease Electrocardiographic Nuisance Alarms. Critical Care Nurse., 35(4), 15-22; quiz 1p following 22.
Full-text for Emory users.

Brantley, A., Collins-Brown, S., Kirkland, J., Knapp, M., Pressley, J., Higgins, M., & McMurtry, J. (n.d.). Clinical Trial of an Educational Program to Decrease Monitor Alarms in a Medical Intensive Care Unit. AACN Advanced Critical Care., 27(3), 283-289
Full-text for Emory users.