Alarm fatigue: impacts on patient safety
Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Electronic medical devices are an integral part of patient care. As new devices are introduced, the number of alarms to which a healthcare professional may be exposed may be as high as 1000 alarms per shift. The US Food and Drug Administration has reported over 500 alarm-related patient deaths in five years. The Joint Commission, recognizing the clinical significance of alarm fatigue, has made clinical alarm management a National Patient Safety Goal. RECENT FINDINGS: Potential solutions to alarm fatigue include technical, organizational, and educational interventions. Selecting only the right monitors (i.e., avoiding overmonitoring), judicious selection of alarm limits, and multimodal alarms can all reduce the number of nuisance alarms to which a healthcare worker is exposed. SUMMARY: Alarm fatigue can jeopardize safety, but some clinical solutions such as setting appropriate thresholds and avoiding overmonitoring are available.
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False alarms desensitize clinical staff to critical alarms (alarm fatigue) and pose a major patient safety issue, leading to alarm-related patient deaths every year.
“False alarms desensitize clinical staff to critical alarms (ie, alarm fatigue) and pose a major patient safety issue, leading to alarm-related patient deaths every year [29].”
From Clinical requirements of future patient monitoring in the intensive care unit: qualitative study (2019) · cites this paper as [29]
Several strategies have been developed to reduce false alarms in the ICU, but implementation into clinical routine is still lacking.
“Although several strategies have been developed to reduce false alarms in the ICU [12,28-31], implementation into a clinical routine is still lacking.”
From Clinical requirements of future patient monitoring in the intensive care unit: qualitative study (2019) · cites this paper as [29]
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- Authors
- Ruskin, K. J., & Hueske-Kraus, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ruskin, Keith J.
- ORCID
- Ruskin, Keith J.
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology
- Published
- 2015-12
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 685-690
- ISSN
- 0952-7907 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2416677955
- Cited by
- 226
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 7
- FWCI
- 9.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Healthcare Technology and Patient Monitoring
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Patient Safety and Medication Errors
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Keywords
- alarm fatigue, clinical alarm systems, electronic medical devices, patient safety, alarm management, alarm thresholds, National Patient Safety Goals
- MeSH terms
- Fatigue, Humans, Monitoring, Physiologic, Noise, United States, Clinical Alarms, Patient Safety
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