Alarm Fatigue Reduction in a Single Patient Room Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

A reduction of alarm fatigue was achieved by decreasing alarms in a single patient room (SPR) neonatal intensive care unit after nurses reported alarm fatigue had greatly increased. The reduction resulted from a nurse-driven quality improvement project through the unit-based council in collaboration with leadership and a multidisciplinary team. Nurses identified, developed, and implemented the project to decrease alarms by 25% within four months. Short alarm delays on patient monitors and communication devices were responsible for a high number of non-actionable alarms. A need for staff education on proper utilization of the monitor silence and pause functions was identified. The unit found 107,000 total alarms in one month;this number was reduced to 36,248 alarms after intervention. By reducing high non-actionable pulse oximeter alarms, the project achieved an overall 40% reduction in total alarms received by nurses.