SOLUTIONS FOR ALARM FATIGUE - WIRELESS HOSPITAL INTEGRATED MESSAGING SYSTEM

CONCERN: ALARM FATIGUE

In a hospital or other care facility environment, there is a plethora of activity. Doctors, nurses and other support staff are keeping up a hectic pace, attempting to cover a sometimes overwhelming patient census. In the midst of this setting, there is a continual stream of messages communicated between and to staff. Many of these messages are in the form of alarms.

"Alarm fatigue" refers to the response - or lack of it - of nurses to more than a dozen types of alarms that can sound hundreds of times a day - and many of those calls are false alarms.

Although the avoidance of false alarms is a good thing, the unfortunate outcome is when a real emergency is presumed to be a false alarm because so many of the alarms do turn out to be false. A solution is necessary to help nurses and other staff filter the alarm messages so that there is a much greater opportunity to identify the serious problems and to indeed ignore the false alarms.

The following is an excerpt from a CBS News report: "Alarm fatigue" blamed in hospital deaths.

As shown in the video, there is a legitimate concern with Alarm fatigue. However, IMS offers an acute care nursing pager system that, when implemented, offers a solution that will help your hospital or healthcare facility address the concern of alarm fatigue.