Clinician exposure to an excessive number of alarms can lead to alarm fatigue, which compromises patient care¹. A recent systematic review found that alarm fatigue has serious implications for clinicians and patients². Clinicians face numerous challenges in managing medical device alarms. Present-day infection control protocols introduce further complexity in the management of infusion devices in a critical care environment.

Ascom and arcomed offer a Distributed Alarm System (DAS), which helps combat alarm fatigue in a number of ways.

•        Provides an overall picture of infusion data on a central dashboard, as well as on mobile devices.
• Allows for visual inspection of infusion device status without entering the patient area.
•        Alarms can be filtered so that only actionable alerts are sent to designated caregivers.

• Optimise workflow for infectious patients by interrogating alarms and identifying critical events. Performing these functions from a central monitor enables clinicians to reduce unnecessary donning and doffing of PPE; thereby reducing the risk of infection transfer.
• Reduce patient disruption by having all the infusion information on the central monitor, including, patient-administered boluses, and near the end of infusion messages.
• By having vital signs monitoring and your infusion data displayed at the central station, clinicians can gain a complete picture of the patient’s condition, and identify concerns or corrections to the patient’s medication requirements.
• The solution also allows for the monitoring of critical infusions in other areas of the hospital.