Improving Safety Culture by Establishing Alarm Fatigue Performance in The Adult Intensive Care Unit, Dammam Hospital

Abstract

Alarm fatigue is becoming a more significant global public health issue that compromises patient safety. Alarm fatigue is especially common among critical care nurses, who are the frontline healthcare providers that provide patients with the most direct care and round-the-clock patient monitoring. An excessive number of alerts, together with erroneous and ineffective alerts, can cause alarm fatigue and negatively impact the psychological well-being of nurses and patients during their recovery process. To find a way to lower the number of false alarms and assess the effectiveness of the measures put in place, a quantitative, descriptive cross-sectional approach was employed. In the adult ICU at NGHA Dammam, this pilot project was carried out from June 2019 to November 2020. In order to identify true alarms and false alarms, the Central Monitor Nurse Daily Checklist was utilized as a data collection tool in conjunction with education training and departmental policies and procedures. There are about 820 alerts per patient each day, including 104 telemetry and 716 bedside alarms. Three months into the project, the project's top alarm measurement was 1503 alarms per patient per day. The project has shown a constant trend in alarm declinations after this peak, largely as a result of project improvement activities. The lowest recorded alarm count in November 2020 was 226 alerts, a 72% decrease from the initial 820 alarms. Nonetheless, the declining trend over the previous three months showed a 22%, 42%, and 48% drop in the overall number of alarms. This study found that alarm fatigue, which is influenced by a number of variables, including safety culture practices, was more common among critical care nurses working in the Intensive Care Unit at NGHA Dammam. Overall, during the first two months of its deployment, this study effectively met its aim and had a considerable impact on the reduction of "false alarms". The results of this study, taken together with improved psychological health for nurses and the provision of a therapeutic environment for patients, offer crucial direction for future intervention programs aimed at reducing alarm fatigue among critical care nurses. Future studies should concentrate on the traits of adherence and management, as well as the obstacles that prevent ICU staff from continuing to implement interventions and false alarm reduction strategies.