How to improve hospital alarm management in seven steps

Step 1: Observe where the pain points are       

The Ascom team firstly identifies the current problem with alarm fatigue by interviewing clinical experts and shadowing staff on wards. By doing so, we can determine the pain points and which alarms are relevant and which are not. Perhaps false alarms are most common from specific types of equipment, or maybe there are certain points in the shift when multiple alarms go off at once.

By observing how staff respond to alarms and how quickly can also provide valuable information. Very often clinicians are not aware of the problems within their environment because they have become so used to them – leading to increased risk of critical alarms being missed and intervention being delayed.

Step 2: Harness data to create a strong business case  

To get stakeholders on board, it's essential to develop a business case that outlines the potential benefits of better alarm management technology. Which is something the Ascom team can provide support with. 

Healthcare providers are driven by the Quadruple Aim: better patient experience; better experience for clinical staff; improved outcomes; and lower costs. Better alarm management can help deliver improvements across all four areas. By deploying an alarm management system that targets the right members of hospital staff at the right time, capacity can be released within the clinical team. This unlocked time can then be spent providing more one-to-one care to patients. Which in turn, helps improve the chances of patients having positive outcomes and to be discharged from hospital sooner.

To create this business case, it is vital to collect data on how many alarms are being triggered, how often, and how they are resolved. This will also serve as a baseline to measure improvements after the project is completed.

Step 3: Redesign a new alarm chain

Using the observation and data collected, the Ascom team can design scenarios for how the new alarm chain should work. This will help us determine which alarms can be filtered out and estimate the effects on workloads without impacting patient safety. Some alarms are caused by situations that would resolve themselves without assistance from a nurse. For example, a patient might trigger a sensor when they turn over, but the alarm will stop once they finish moving. Introducing a delay into the system would filter out these alerts and ensure that neither patient nor staff are disturbed unnecessarily.

Step 4: Determine alarm content and responsibilities

When an alarm is sent, it's crucial to define what information should be included. Perhaps electrocardiogram (ECG) data is required, information about how much medication is left in the patient’s infusion pump, or an Early Warning Score (EWS or NEWS) when a patient’s blood pressure tracks too high out of the abnormal range. In ante-natal departments it is often useful for an alert to include a camera feed so the clinical staff can see the baby immediately.

It is also necessary to define who should receive the alert in the first instance and what should happen if they do not respond within a certain amount of time. Perhaps the alert should then be escalated to a buddy nurse or sent to the entire staff of the ward. The right approach depends on how the department is organised and the severity of the alarm.

As part of this work, the Ascom team produces a data sheet for each alarm, which is presented to the department to ensure that it works as intended.

Step 5: Introduce a new way of working on the ward 

The software is installed by Ascom, and we provide any necessary new handheld devices for the clinical staff. The system is intuitive, and an hour of training by our team is typically all that's needed.

It is essential to address the culture of alarm fatigue and make staff aware that there will be fewer alarms, but the alarms that do go off are important and should not be ignored.

After our training comes the  testing phase, during which the system can be tweaked. We return for reviews after two weeks, two months and six months, to ensure everything is working as planned.

Step 6: Analyse the impact  

After testing the new processes, we can compare them to the benchmarks taken before the project began. It’s important to measure that alarms are being transformed into actionable intelligence and empowering caregivers with the right data, at the right time, and in the right place. Have we been able to reduce the cognitive load for nurses? Do they feel less overwhelmed by the number of alarms that go off and how frequently? Is the new system reducing pressure on resources?

Not every alarm can be reduced, but we should see improvements in alarm reduction, staff fatigue, and patient safety. 

Step 7: Continual monitoring

It's essential for us and our customers  to monitor the system on an ongoing basis to ensure it continues to function as intended. By using dashboards, the department can see how the system is working and adjust it as needed.

There will inevitably be a need for changes over time, too. Alarms might be applied to new situations, for example, or new devices might be rolled out to the department. And as our software continually grows in its capabilities through annual updates. Occasionally, significant new features will require further training from the Ascom team.

Ascom Alarm Management solution Alarm fatigue is a real problem in the healthcare industry, and it puts both staff and patients at risk. Our near-real-time alert distribution and prioritization help reduce alarm fatigue, ensuring that critical notifications receive immediate attention, while minimizing unnecessary distractions. By streamlining communication and improving situational awareness, we empower healthcare teams to focus on what truly matters - patient care. By following the seven steps outlined above, we can optimize the way alarms are managed in the healthcare department and general hospital wards and improve patient care.

Find out how Ascom can help improve your alarm management here or get in touch to speak to one of our experts.