Are there too many alarms in the intensive care unit? An overview of the problems

Abstract

There are many reported problems with auditory warnings in critical care areas of hospitals such as the intensive care unit (ICU) and operating room. There are too many alarms; many of them are unnecessarily loud and continuous, which can be irritating and annoying for staff. The problem of excessive alarms is further complicated by the fact that there are no standards agreed between manufacturers on the auditory warnings used for medical equipment. Therefore, the same piece of equipment manufactured by different companies will have different alarms that could result in confusion. Another possibility as to why confusion could occur is because alarms are often inappropriate in terms of their 'urgency mapping'. This means there is generally no relationship between the urgency of a medical situation and the perceived urgency of the alarm that signals that condition. A further problem involves the number of false alarms that occur; that is, alarms that are not signalling a medical emergency. The following paper discusses these problems and suggests attempts to remedy some of them. There is also a brief discussion of the amount of monitoring that occurs on the ICU as the more monitors there are the greater the number of alarms there will be