Reducing In-Room Alarms (while improving Patient Safety)
Studies show in-room alarms can be detrimental to patient safety in hospitals. Fall prevention systems that depend on loud in-room alarms to notify staff of an at-risk patient exiting the bed increase the likelihood of an adverse event. Noise of alarms has also been noted to startle residents and can have an adverse effect on resident safety [11,23,26]. It has been argued that the sound of the alarm can startle or scare a resident and cause, attribute to, or lead to a fall [23].1
In patients with dementia, the result might be a reflexive response to flee, which could cause a fall that would not have occurred, as well as unnecessary stress.2 This is one reason that CareView’s Patient Safety System® does not rely on in-room alarms to notify staff. Instead, it uses centralized monitoring, in conjunction with its patented Virtual Rails® technology to keep alarms out of the patient’s room.
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- https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/7/1/51/htm
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/153331751143273