Hospital Alarms Pose Risk For Patients: Study

Hospital alarms that are meant to improve patient safety and prevent harm are a potential health hazard to patients who spend a great amount of time in the facility. A new study suggests that redesigning the hospital alarm may lower the risk for patients.

The study by researchers at the University of Michigan and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System highlights that alarm fatigue in hospitals might be dangerous for the patients. Through this study they suggest different techniques to combat alarm fatigue that is said to lead to injuries in some patients and in worst cases even death.

"Like many innovations, alarms were first developed to help avoid complications among a small group of high-risk, critically ill patients. Because they have grown in popularity, we have come to a point where we have alarms for everything - not just for problems that are critical or life threatening. Providers may be desensitized to all the noise in the hospital and can't tell which alarms are important, often silencing or ignoring them. That puts patients at risk," says lead author Vineet Chopra, M.B.B.S., clinical assistant professor of Internal Medicine at the U-M Medical School.

A recent report by the Food and Drug Administration reveals that there have been nearly 560 deaths every year due to hospital alarms.  The increase in deaths has triggered a major concern about the prevalence of alarm.

The researchers suggest the need for redesigning the hospital alarm systems in order to make the hospital environment safer and reduce the deaths occurring due to loud alarm noises.

The hospital alarms can be made more efficient by examining whether there is a real need for  alarms, and if they are a necessity it is good to have a redesigned alarm in order to make it less or more intrusive based on the seriousness of the event and incorporate a technology that sends alarms calls in a manner that can lead less noise and better detection of the gravity of the situation.

"Hospital alarms are an incredibly valuable tool but we need to make drastic changes in how they are designed and used in order to ensure they do the job they were intended to do," Chopra says.

The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.