Every hospital certified by The Joint Commission (TJC) has been directed to improve their alarm management processes.
TJC requires that, during 2014, each hospital’s management catalogue their hospital’s medical devices that generate alarms and identify the most important alarm signals to manage.
By the end of 2015, hospitals must establish policies and procedures for managing their hospital’s alarms.
Achieving and staying compliant is critical with these deadlines in place. Below are some recommended steps that a hospital’s administration and nursing leaders should take to develop an Alarm Management Plan:
• A complete inventory of all medical devices in your hospital that generate patient-related alarms
• A detailed analysis of alarms generated, including nurse call requests, in terms of alarm frequency and duration by device and unit, as well as alarm parameters
• Identification of alternatives for monitoring and responding to alarm signals, along with techniques for measuring and recording notifications and responses
• A final joint commission ready report
Not sure where to start or how best to go about this? We can help. At Amplion, our work in delivering millions of alarm notification messages has given us the experience to help you comply with this National Patient Safety Goal.
Our consulting service allows you to develop a plan to manage alarms, keep your patients safer and reduce alarm fatigue for your clinical team.
We can help you not only develop the alarm management plan; but also, deliver a final report, including findings from the data collected, combined with published best practices, to provide valuable insight for the following decisions to be made by hospital management:
• Appropriate settings for alarm signals approved by clinical leadership
• When alarm signals can be disabled or alarm parameters changed
• Whether specific alarm signals are needed or unnecessarily contribute to alarm noise and fatigue
• Who in the organization has authority to set or change alarm parameters or turn alarms off
All of the findings to support the hospital’s decisions as described above will be documented in a professional report suitable for use with TJC.
For additional information, please email us at sales@amplionalert.com or call us at (615) 843-9000 and we would be happy to assist you with your alarm management requirements.
Author: Frank Grant