Understanding heart rate alarm adjustment in the intensive care units through an analytical approach.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Heart rate (HR) alarms are prevalent in ICU, and these parameters are configurable. Not much is known about nursing behavior associated with tailoring HR alarm parameters to individual patients to reduce clinical alarm fatigue.

Objectives

To understand the relationship between heart rate (HR) alarms and adjustments to reduce unnecessary heart rate alarms.

Methods

Retrospective, quantitative analysis of an adjudicated database using analytical approaches to understand behaviors surrounding parameter HR alarm adjustments. Patients were sampled from five adult ICUs (77 beds) over one month at a quaternary care university medical center. A total of 337 of 461 ICU patients had HR alarms with 53.7% male, mean age 60.3 years, and 39% non-Caucasian. Default HR alar

SUBMITTER: Fidler RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5703448 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature