As an important means to improve patient safety, ECG monitors play an ekg monitor in clinical practice. And we often hear alarms from ECG monitors that remind us that the patient may have changed his condition. However, in clinical work, we sometimes encounter such a problem: the ECG monitor alarms, and when we come to the patient, sometimes it is just a false report, and the patient is not abnormal. These pointless alarms are like the story in "The Wolf Crying". If this happens frequently, it will eventually tire us out and over time our trust will be threatened.

What is the status and how of the alarm system of the ECG monitor?

According to the survey data, the ECG monitor in the ICU has an average temperature alarming frequency of 37 times, and the average time alarm system is as high as 19 times between 7:00 and 19:00 in the morning. Meaningful and meaningless alarm information respectively account for the total alarms 3.5% and 31.1% of the number of treatments.

The false alarm rate is 65.4%, the arrhythmia alarm error rate is as high as 99.9%, and the respiratory alarm error rate is 86.7%.

Such a number after another reminds us that the meaningless alarm of ECG monitors in our clinic has indeed become a "common event", and the story of "wolf" happens from time to time. No doubt this will add some difficulty to our care.

What factors can cause false alarms on monitors?

The common reasons for false reporting are as follows:

â‘  Improper adjustment of the upper and lower limits of the alarm parameters, if the upper limit is set too low and the lower limit is set too high, it will affect the alarm frequency of the monitor;

(ii) false reports of arrhythmias caused by external disturbances or muscle tremors;

â‘¢ For patients with pacemakers, the pacing monitoring mode is not set;

â‘£ Redness and itching of the skin appear in the different parts where the electrode pads are placed [3].

How to reduce false or meaningless alarms?

1. Change electrodes daily

It has been noted that by changing the pads daily, alarms can be reduced by 46%. In our clinical work, we do not treat the patient's skin when the pads are attached, and sometimes we replace the pads when the patient tells them that the pads have come off. Therefore, it is very necessary to incorporate the daily replacement of electrode pads into our management work.

2. Set the alarm limit reasonably

Clinically, the alarm limits of an ECG monitor cannot be set too wide or too narrow. In addition, the problem we face is that there is no uniform standard for the current international alarm limit setting. We need to treat different patients differently to improve the effectiveness of monitoring alarms!

Posted by: jadelung at 03:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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