![]() The Joint Commission makes several recommendations, including many from ECRI Institute, to help healthcare organizations to improve safety surrounding alarm-equipped medical devices, including ensuring that there is a process for safe alarm management and response in high-risk areas (as identified by the organization) preparing an inventory of alarm-equipped medical devices used in high-risk areas and for high-risk clinical conditions and identifying the default alarm settings and the limits appropriate for each care area establishing guidelines for alarm settings on alarm-equipped medical devices used in high-risk areas and for high-risk clinical conditions, including identification of situations when alarm signals are not clinically necessary establishing guidelines for tailoring alarm settings and limits for individual patients and inspecting, checking, and maintaining alarm-equipped devices to provide for accurate and appropriate alarm settings, proper operation, and detectability. Major contributing factors in the reported events included an absent or inadequate alarm system, improper alarm settings, alarm signals that were not audible in all areas, and alarm settings that were inappropriately turned off. According to the alert, alarm-related events are recognized as underreported and occur in all healthcare settings however, 94 of the reported events occurred in hospitals, with the majority of those events occurring in telemetry, intensive care, general medicine, or emergency department areas. Of the 98 alarm-related events that were reported to the Joint Commission’s sentinel event database between January 2009 and June 2012, 80 resulted in death, 13 in permanent loss of function, and 5 in unexpected additional care or extended stay. ![]() The sheer number of medical device alarm signals on some hospital units can cause some clinicians to become overwhelmed by information or desensitized or immune to the sounds, a condition known as “alarm fatigue,” which can have serious consequences to patient safety, states an April 8, 2013, Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert. ![]()
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