How to Reduce Alarm Fatigue

Alarm Fatigue and How to Reduce It

The selected research topic is ‘alarm fatigue and how to reduce it’. Alarm fatigue can be defined as sensory overload that occurs when healthcare professionals are exposed to the constant noise of medical device alarms, leading to desensitization that results in delayed response or missed alarms altogether (Chromik et al., 2022). This assignment details why this topic was selected. It begins with a discussion of the difference between primary and secondary research to lay the foundation for the research procedures that will be carried out.

Difference between Primary and Secondary Research

According to Jugenheimer et al. (2014), primary research could be conceptualized as research that involves collecting original data first hand from participants to address a specific research problem. It is important to note that in primary research, the researcher gathers the information themselves rather than relying on information available in existing publications and databases. The main aim of primary research is to produce new knowledge by providing answers to questions that have not been answered before. The most common types of primary research approaches include surveys, observation, interviews, and focus group discussions (Jugenheimer et al., 2014).

Secondary research is research that involves collecting and synthesizing data published in existing publications, databases, and other information sources (Jugenheimer et al., 2014). In secondary research, the researcher analyzes data collected by other researchers. Common sources of data for secondary research are inclusive of academic journals, published articles and books, reports and databases of government agencies, educational institutions, and commercial sources of information, i.e. newspapers. The proposed project will make use of secondary research.

Justification of Selected Topic

Alarm fatigue has been recognized as a critical safety issue in healthcare organizations. Between 2005 and 2008, reporting systems at the United States Food and drug Administration (FDA) received 566 reports of patient deaths related to missed alarms or delayed responses by medical staff (Hall et al., 2020). The FDA concluded that alarm fatigue among medical staff was a primary factor in most of these events due to the large number of alarms reported daily and the rising percentage of false alarms (Hall et al., 2020). For instance, a study in one medical unit found that over 16,900 alarms went off over a period of 18 days (Hall et al., 2020). In yet another study at an academic medical center, over 59,000 alarms were reported over a period of 12 days (Hall et al., 2020).

Unfortunately, research data shows that besides being excessive, a good number of these alarms are false. According to Lewandowska et al. (2020), between 72 and 99 percent of alarms reported on a single day in medical facilities across the US are false. Gaines (2022), for instance, cites one study based in a children’s hospital, which found that on average, 5,300 alarms were reported daily, and 95 percent of these were false. Unfortunately, excessive alarms increase noise in a hospital setting, which disrupts communication and increases stress among medical staff (Chromik et al., 2022). The situation is worse when a large percentage of alarms are false, because this leads to a tendency to ignore the alerts, which places patients at risk when an alert is genuine. A 2011 investigation by the Boston Globe (as cited in Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality - AHRQ, 2019) found that failure to appropriately respond to alerts from physiological monitoring systems accounted for more than 200 deaths in US facilities over a five-year period.