Impact of a Data-driven Monitor Alarm Reduction Strategy Implemented in Safety Huddles

Hospital physiologic monitors can alert clinicians to early signs of physiologic
deterioration, and thus have great potential to be life-saving. However, monitors generate
frequent alarms, most of which are non-actionable.

When clinicians become overburdened with alarms, they begin to exhibit alarm fatigue:
responding more slowly to alarms or ignoring alarms entirely. In this protocol the
investigators outline the methods they will use to evaluate the impact of a safety
huddle-based intervention on physiologic monitor alarm rates using a pragmatic, paired,
cluster-randomized controlled trial with the intervention delivered at the unit level. This
work is considered quality improvement research, and some of the approaches described in
this protocol are from the field of quality improvement.

Currently, at most hospitals data like this on the numbers of alarms that patients generate
are only available to researchers with the software tools needed to interrogate and record
data from the monitor network. The goal of this proposal is to bring this data to the safety
huddles occurring daily on inpatient units in an accessible format to help teams make
informed decisions about monitoring and minimize the potential of harm from alarm fatigue.

Inclusion criteria: Any nurse, physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant
caring for a patient whose alarms are discussed in a safety huddle on an intervention
unit.

Exclusion criteria: none