Title : Battling alarm fatigue: safely modifying age-based heart rate and respiratory rate parameters in acute care pediatric patients based on nursing judgment.
Abstract:
Abstract:
Objective: Providing safe patient care while decreasing alarm fatigue when using continuous heart rate and respiratory rate monitoring is a delicate balance. Adjusting alarm parameters can decrease the risk for alarm fatigue as well as maintaining patient safety.
Methods: Alarms were monitored from a central monitoring system for all patients using continuous heart and respiratory rate monitors for 3 weeks. Data collected included heart rate and respiratory rate during a sounding alarm, whether an intervention was necessary or not, the age of the client, the condition the client was admitted for, and the current alarm parameters set.
Results: It was determined that the current age-based protocol +/-15% was safe and effective in meeting the needs of decrease non-actionable alarms by 43% and maintaining safety with zero actionable alarms during the time period of this project.
Discussion: Allowing nursing to use critical thinking to adjust heart rate and respiratory rate parameters by +/-15% provides a safe and effective method in reducing alarm fatigue while maintaining patient safety.
