Alarm Configuration in Intensive Care Units of a Corporate Hospital

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In intensive care units (ICUs), inappropriate alarm configuration practices pose significant challenges to patient safety and healthcare providers. The current practices lack standardized guidelines, resulting in excessive alarms and alarm fatigue, where healthcare providers become desensitized and may miss critical events. The absence of standardized protocols and ineffective alarm prioritization exacerbate the problem. The present study aims to understand the various alarm configuration practices in the Intensive Care Unit and to proactively evaluate the limitations of clinical alarm systems management. It focused on identifying reasons for the occurrence of nuisance and false alarms, factoring in the proportion of these unnecessary alarms, and chalking out measures to reduce these false and nuisance alarms. After months of ICU observation, Alarm desensitization, and Alarm fatigue came out to be eminent issues in the functioning of an Intensive Care Unit. The clamor of alarms has been demonstrated to hinder patient recovery, lengthen stays, have a poor impact on patient satisfaction, and cause patient anxiety, sleep difficulties, delirium, elevated blood pressure and heart rates, and immune system deterioration. Therefore, fewer alerts and a simpler alarm configuration procedure can aid in better patient outcomes. The response to all alarms is imperative but false and nuisance alarms make it challenging for the nurses to differentiate and respond to genuine alarms. The study focused on identifying reasons for the occurrence of nuisance and false alarms, factoring in the proportion of these unnecessary alarms, and chalking out measures to reduce these false and nuisance alarms. This included a checklist to monitor the alarms in ICUs on a daily basis for various equipment including cardiac monitors, ventilators, dialysis machines, syringe pumps, and infusion pumps. These were monitored for around 5 hours a day and the analysis revealed most of the equipment especially cardiac monitors giving out false and nuisance alarms. A pre-assessment questionnaire was made to assess the knowledge and perception regarding clinical alarms for nurses. The analysis revealed that 40% of nurses could not differentiate between false and nuisance alarms.