REDUCE ALARMS
RECLAIM TIME

Tailoring patient monitoring parameters — such as alert levels for heart rate and peripheral oxygenation — can reduce false alarms associated with default factory settings. One clinical team saw a 50 percent reduction in alarms after customizing thresholds.([FOOTNOTE=American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. Alarm management. Crit Care Nurse. 2013;33(5):83–86.],[ANCHOR=],[LINK=])

Preparing patient skin, maintaining lead cables, and changing electrodes can prevent alarms triggered by falsely perceived irregularities. One clinical team reduced average alarms per bed, per day by 46 percent.([FOOTNOTE=Cvach MM, Biggs M, Rothwell KJ. Daily electrode change and effect on cardiac monitor alarms: an evidence-based practice approach. J Nurs Care Qual. 2013;28(3):265–271. doi: 10.1097/NCQ.0b013e31827993bc.],[ANCHOR=],[LINK=])

Combining multiple sources of patient monitoring data into an algorithm can generate more robust vitals readings. In one study, connecting three heart rate sensors with a neural network algorithm reduced false alarms by 92.5 percent.([FOOTNOTE=Borges G, Brusamarello V. Sensor fusion methods for reducing false alarms in heart rate monitoring. J Clin Monit Comput. 2016;30(6):859–867. ],[ANCHOR=],[LINK=])

One study showed that wireless technology helped nurses respond to 62 percent of calls in less than a minute. Improved response times also helped reduce patient falls.([FOOTNOTE=Guarascio-Howard L. Examination of wireless technology to improve nurse communication, response time to bed alarms, and patient safety. HERD. 2011;4(2):109–120.],[ANCHOR=],[LINK=])