Hospital safety organizations have listed alarm fatigue — the sensory overload and desensitization that clinicians experience when exposed to an excessive amount of alarms — as one of the top 10 technology hazards in acute care settings. This term refers to situations in which clinicians ignore or turn off the alarms that they find irrelevant or annoying. Document. The Joint Commission, which accredits U.S. hospitals and other healthcare organizations, has issued a sentinel event alert to hospitals about the need to reduce "alarm fatigue" related to alarms set off by monitoring devices. 1. Alarm fatigue in nursing is a real and serious problem. JAMA. The alert also calls on organizations to provide training and education on safe alarm management and response to all members of the care team. The organizational and technological aspects of the hospital environment are highly complex, and alarm fatigue has been implicated in medical accidents. Patient safety and regulatory agencies have focused on the issue of alarm fatigue, and it is a 2014 Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal. The number of conditions and therapeutics to be monitored, “alarm fatigue” caused by the large number of alarms, and a lack of commitment by hospital staff all can lead to dire consequences. As defined by the Joint Commission, alarm fatigue is known as the desensitization of medical staff as a result of sensory overload. 2 The Joint Commission, recognizing the clinical significance of alarm fatigue, has therefore made clinical alarm management a National Patient Safety Goal. The Joint Commission released a sentinel event alert in April 2015 calling for health care organizations to pay close attention to information technology as a safety issue. The Joint Commission, recognizing the clinical significance of alarm fatigue, has made clinical alarm management a National Patient Safety Goal. Each year we gather information about emerging patient safety issues from widely recognized experts and stakeholders. A Work Plan for The Joint Commission Alarm National Patient Safety Goal William A. Hyman, ScD The effective use of medical device alarms continues ... to alarm noise and alarm fatigue Establish alarm necessity Working deadline: Create alarm necessity survey tool and use it to assess necessity for each alarm. The subsequent alarm fatigue contributes to delayed or reduced clinician response to alarms, which can lead to missed critical events and patient death. “Alarm fatigue and management of alarms are important safety issues that we must confront,” Dr. Ana McKee, executive vice president and chief medical officer at the Joint Commission, said in a statement. The Joint Commission has identified alarm management as a national patient safety goal and requires hospitals to take action to reduce unnecessary alarms as a condition of accreditation. 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