• Emalie M Petersen and Cindy L Costanzo.
• Emalie M. Petersen, DNP, BSN, RN, PCCN, CCRN, AG-ACNP is a hospital nurse practitioner at CHI Health St. Elizabeth's in Lincoln, Nebraska. Throughout this research project, she worked at Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings, Nebraska in a 12-bed emergency department. She recently finished her DNP as an Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Cindy L. Costanzo, PhD, RN, CNL, is a senior associate dean at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. She served as the committee advisor throughout this project. Her expertise is administration and quality and safety.
• Dimens Crit Care Nurs. 2017 Jan 1; 36 (1): 36-44.

BackgroundExcessive clinical alarms have inundated health care for years. Multiple governing bodies, organizations, and facilities have deemed alarm management a priority. Alarm management is a multifaceted problem that affects all health care organizations and clinical staff, especially those in critical care units. Ultimately, the lack of knowledge regarding nurses' perceptions to alarm management and alarm fatigue creates patient safety chiasms.ObjectivesThe purpose of this quality improvement project was to understand nurses' perceptions of alarm fatigue (utilizing the Healthcare Technology Foundation's Clinical Alarms Committee Survey) while implementing interventions that improve patient safety.MethodsThe design of this qualitative study is an electronically distributed survey to 31 nurses who work in critical care. The Healthcare Technology Foundation clinical alarms survey has 36 questions with various answering strategies distributed (with permission) via e-mail access by BlueQ through Creighton University.ResultsTwenty-six respondents (n = 26) completed the survey, with 42% being intensive care unit nurses and 58% being progressive care unit nurses. The majority of nurses (n = 23, 88%) agreed that nuisance alarms occur frequently and disrupt patient care (n = 25, 96%). A lack of standardized method was noted to alarm management and parameter changes. Multiple patterns emerged that initiated the need for further examination and improvement.DiscussionFollowing the survey, themes emerged, and changes were implemented including the following: an alarm management policy was created, tools were provided to staff for easy usage, staff were educated using hands-on practice at an annual training summit, and sustainability was created through continuation of alarm management assessment and improvement.

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