Here are some implications of monitor and alarm fatigue:
- It poses a significant patient safety risk. Nurses who are desensitized to alarms may not respond promptly or at all to critical alarms, putting patients at risk. This could lead to delays in treatment or undetected deterioration.
- It reduces the effectiveness of clinical monitoring systems. When alarms frequently go off for non-critical reasons, nurses learn to ignore them. This undermines the purpose of monitoring systems to promptly alert staff of changes in patient condition.
- It impacts nurse workload and stress. Constant alarms increase cognitive load and auditory stress on nurses. Over time, this level of stress and workload contributes to staff burnout. Burnout further exacerbates the problem of