Hospital pediatrics
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Concerns about alarm fatigue prompted The Joint Commission to issue a Sentinel Event Alert urging hospitals to minimize alarms. We previously conducted a quality improvement project on a single unit that reduced time on continuous pulse oximetry, a common source of physiologic monitor alarms, for patients with wheezing (ie, asthma and bronchiolitis, wheezing-associated respiratory infections). ⋯ Reducing continuous pulse oximetry use alone may not make substantial reductions in overall alarm counts. Even on our intervention unit, alarm burden remained quite high.