Alarm fatigue is a critical issue in health centers that, if ignored or underestimated by numbed nurses, can result in deaths or disabilities. An overhead page discloses codes or traumas throughout, phones ring continuously, and nurses may hurry into action, disrupting their workflow. Distractions such as interruptions from coworkers or alarms when distributing high-risk medicines or programming an intravenous pump are instances of distractions that can lead to fatal medication errors (Casey et al., 2018). Adverse outcomes are diminished due to additional system protections when tech is used correctly with fewer interruptions. Since many nurses know workarounds that can negatively affect patient safety, technology is only as secure as the person entering data and programming it (Casey et al., 2018). Alarms are generally set to the default configuration for the general populace, but staff can change them to reduce interruptions. Rather than turning off alarms totally, many organizations have introduced audible pause buttons.
In addition, alarm fatigue typically causes physicians to become insensitive to multiple alarms, the majority of which are inconsequential. As a result, caregivers understand alarms as ambient noise in their work atmosphere. Other distractions, such as cellphones and overhead paging, affect the practitioners’ cognitive performance (Zhao et al., 2021). Interruptions, particularly alarm fatigue, can result in poor patient outcomes and even unsafe acts. The unintended retention of foreign materials during surgical operations is the most prevalent sentinel event, resulting in death, impairment, or disability (Lewandowska et al., 2020). The rationale is that the alarm may notify clinicians of the patient’s deteriorating condition or the failure of a specific machine. If physicians ignore the alerts or fail to respond quickly, the patient’s health may deteriorate or even lead to death (Zhao et al., 2021). A cellphone interruption may also divert a caregiver’s attention away from providing care to the patient; hence, that can aggravate the client’s condition.
References
Casey, S., Avalos, G., & Dowling, M. (2018). Critical care nurses’ knowledge of alarm fatigue and practices towards alarms: A multicentre study. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 48, 36-41.
Lewandowska, K., Weisbrot, M., Cieloszyk, A., Mędrzycka-Dąbrowska, W., Krupa, S., & Ozga, D. (2020). Impact of alarm fatigue on the work of nurses in an intensive care Environment—A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(22), 8409.
Zhao, Y., Wan, M., Liu, H., & Ma, M. (2021). The current situation and influencing factors of the alarm fatigue of nurses’ medical equipment in the intensive care unit based on intelligent medical care. Journal of Healthcare Engineering.