This effort was a continuation of the 2004 HTF initiative to improve the use of clinical alarms in healthcare. The initial milestone was the completion of a 2007 white paper – Impact of Clinical Alarms on Patient Safety. This paper reviewed the literature related to the effective use of clinical alarm and analyzed adverse event databases. Efforts to improve alarms through technological, standards, and regulatory means were also assessed and evaluated. Forums, meetings and a survey of 1,327 clinicians, engineers, technical staff and managers provided considerable feedback regarding alarm issues.
Clinical alarms continue to receive significant attention from manufacturers, users, accreditation agencies and regulators in order to help assure the effective design and use of clinical alarms.
The resources below include HTF publications along with those of our board members and other material of interest.
Healthcare Technology Foundation Publications
2012 AAMI Clinical Alarm Survey Summary Presentation (2.2Mb)
2011 Alarms Survey Results
2011 National Clinical Alarms Survey (2.7Mb)
Board Member Publications
2012 Responsibilities of Industry and Setting Standards by Tobey Clark, MS CCE FACCE (2.3Mb)
2012 CVS.411 Cardiac Monitoring & Alarm Fatigue-Toward a Posible Solution: Are We Over-monitoring by Marge Funk, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN (838Kb)
2012 Why Clinical Alarms are a "TOP TEN" Hazard by James P. Keller, Jr., M.S. (1.2Mb)
2012 NPSF Clinical Alarm Fatigue Webcast Slides (2.2Mb)
2012 AAMI: Alarm management survey shows little progress in last six years, June
2012 National Clinical Alarms Surveys – 5 years Comparison of Issues, Improvements and Priorities, WC2012/IFMBE Proceedings Paper, May (294 Kb)
2012 Alarm Fatigue, Cuidado, January (133 Kb)
2008 Fault Tree Analysis of Clinical Alarms, Journal of Clinical Engineering, April/June (441 Kb)
2008 Alarms and Nurse to Patient Ratios, American Journal of Critical Care, March (58 Kb)
2008 National Online Survey on the Effectiveness of Clinical Alarms, American Journal of Critical Care, January
Clinical Alarm Improvement Resources
2013 AAMI Hot Topics Alarm Systems
2012 AAMI Foundation Healthcare Technology Safety Institute – Clinical Alarms
Alarm Safety Resource Site, ECRI Institute
2011 Alarming Monitor Problems, January, US FDA
2011 Alarming Monitor Problems, Video-January, US FDA
Articles on Clinical Alarms
2013 ECRI Institute Top Health Technology Hazard – Alarms
2013 Hospitals Mobilize to Tackle Alarm Fatigue
2012 AAMI Foundation's HTSI Releases First "Safety Innovations" Paper
2012 Alarm Fatigue Hazards: The Sirens Are Calling, May/June
2012 What's That Sound I Hear?, AARC (link to AARC Website) (831 Kb)
2012 Did You Hear an Alarm?, Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, March
2011 JAMA Tele-ICU article, JAMA, June (214 Kb) (subscription required)
2011 The Need for Systems Integration In Health Care, JAMA, March (46 Kb) (subscription required)
2011 Reducing Alarm Hazards, Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare
2010 Auditory Assistance-Strategies to reduce hospital noise problems
2008 Fixing an Alarming Situation, Health Data Management (362 Kb)
Archive
2007 National Patient Safety Foundation Clinical Alarms Poster (144 Kb)
2007 National Patient Safety Foundation Clinical Alarms Poster Abstract (32 Kb)
2006 Clinical Alarms White Paper PDF (4.6Mb)
2007 Impact of Clinical Alarms on Patient Safety, Journal of Clinical Engineering, January/March (1.1 Mb)
2006 Impact of Clinical Alarms on Patient Safety (410 Kb)
2006 Alarm Call for Action – What You Can Do (135 Kb)
2005-2006 Presentations and publications
2004-2007 Task force members
2005 Organizations Contributing to the Survey Design and/or Distribution
2005 Bibliography
2004 Development of the Initiative
