Hospital Deaths Caused By Too Many Beeping Machines

Alarm fatigue is a growing problem in American hospitals. In an era when patients are hooked up to myriad noisy devices to monitor their vital signs, hospital workers are becoming desensitized to the beeps and buzzes of the machines, reportedly leading to at least two dozen deaths per year.

The problem is probably a lot more widespread than that, according to the Associated Press, as cases of alarm fatigue are likely vastly underreported, according to the Joint Commission, which released a report called "Medical device alarm safety in hospitals" today.

The report counts some of the many medical devices in hospitals that use alarm systems, including bedside electocardiagram (ECG) machines, blood pressure monitors, central station monitors, infusion pumps, and ventilators. And the problem could only grow with the growth of monitoring technology and the alarm bells and status updates they engender.

According to the Joint Commission, the number of alarm signals that can go off per day, per patient, can be as many as several hundred. Count all those patients in the most critical hospital units, and the number of alarms can reach into the tenths of thousands every day. However, the commission estimates that a high percentage, perhaps as much as 85% to 99% of alarm signals are not the kind which require immediate clinical attention. This can happen when machines' default settings do not match an individual patient's condition, or when the settings are too tight.

"In response to this constant barrage of noise, clinicians may turn down the volume of the alarm setting, turn it off, or adjust the alarm settings outside the limits that are safe and appropriate for the patient - all of which can have serious, often fatal consequences," the commission's report says.

The number of deaths possibly linked to alarm fatigue and its consequences may be more than 500, found in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration database and reported by the AP.