What Is Alarm Fatigue? Tips for Prevention

Alarm fatigue is sensory overload caused by too many alerts, beeps, and alarms. As a result, healthcare professionals can become desensitized to those signals, causing them to miss or ignore certain ones or deliver delayed responses.

The root of the problem, of course, is nurses’ exposure to too many alarms due to the prevalence of technological devices in healthcare. According to a literature review in a 2020 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health study, an ICU patient generates an average of 150-400 alarms during a nurse’s shift. Blood pressure monitors, ventilators, electrocardiogram machines, and dialysis equipment can all emit alerts and sounds.

The study also found that 85% to 99% of those alarms are false or “clinically insignificant,” giving nurses even more incentive to shut out or ignore notifications. False alarms can be triggered for a number of reasons: some devices are highly sensitive to stimuli, and sometimes a machine’s settings aren’t configured to the patient’s specific needs or the nurse’s parameters.

The effects of alarm fatigue are significant for both nurses and patients, impacting the delivery and quality of care. Notable consequences of alarm fatigue include nurse burnout, decreased quality of care, and dissatisfied patients.

Alarm fatigue is a major contributor to nurse burnout, which occurs when nurses become overworked, stressed, and emotionally exhausted. According to 2019 data from the Joint Commission, burnout is one of the leading safety and quality concerns in healthcare. Nurse burnout can lead to poor performance, illness, anxiety and depression, withdrawal from responsibilities, and detachment from work experiences.

Since alarm fatigue can cause nurses to miss or ignore alarms, the quality of care can suffer as a result. The Food and Drug Administration receives several hundred thousand reports of deaths, serious injuries, and malfunctions due to suspected medical device issues each year. If a nurse silences or dismisses an alarm tracking a patient’s heart rate, for example, they may fail to consider a life-threatening issue and risk putting the patient in a dangerous situation.

Patients can also experience alarm fatigue and the negative effects of healthcare technology. A noisy and disruptive medical environment, for instance, can lead to anxiety, stress, and poor cooperation with care providers. Since alarm fatigue also impacts nurses’ performances on the job, it can contribute to patients’ dissatisfaction with their level of care and poor treatment outcomes.

Nurses and healthcare leaders can help prevent, avoid, and mitigate alarm fatigue in a variety of ways, such as:

• Optimizing nurse schedules so alerts don’t fall on one person
• Educating staff on protocols for monitoring systems and managing alarm settings
• Evaluating where and when alarms are clinically significant or superfluous
• Consistently gathering nurse feedback about burnout and alarm fatigue
• Customizing alarms based on each patient’s condition and healthcare needs
• Designating actionable responses for each type of alert so nurses know how to respond
• Consolidating or disabling redundant alarms
• Properly preparing patients for the placement of device hookups and monitoring protocols
• Categorizing alarms based on priority levels
• Analyzing alarm data to pinpoint and predict when issues arise
• Reducing alarm decibel levels or experimenting with different sound types
• Regularly maintaining and updating equipment, including changing or charging batteries and installing new software

Nurse leaders play an important role in shaping the future of healthcare. With the right education and preparation, they have an opportunity to create safer, more productive working environments for professionals across the industry.

Maryville University MSN degree online program is designed to help nurses advance their careers by practicing evidence-based decision-making, focusing on the tenets of preventive and compassionate care, and gaining clinical experience in their preferred settings. Students can also choose from five nurse practitioner concentrations, allowing them to pursue the track that best meets their passions and career goals.

Act today to learn how Maryville can help you become a nurse leader and innovator.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “Making Healthcare Safer III: A Critical Analysis of Existing and Emerging Patient Safety Practices”

Atlassian, “Understanding and Fighting Alert Fatigue”

Biomedical Informatics Insights, “Incorporating Observed Physiological Data to Personalize Pediatric Vital Sign Alarm Thresholds”

ECRI Institute, “2020 Top 10 Health Technology Hazards”

Health Leaders Media, “The Joint Commission Tackles Nurse Burnout”

Incredible Health, “Alarm Fatigue in Nursing and How to Deal With It”

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, “Impact of Alarm Fatigue on the Work of Nurses in an Intensive Care Environment — A Systematic Review”

Patient Safety Authority, “Telemetry Monitoring in Pennsylvania”

U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “Medical Device Reporting (MDR): How to Report Medical Device Problems”