Although The Joint Commission dropped alarm safety as a patient safety goal in 2005 (a year after setting it as a goal), recent reviews by the US Food and Drug Administration and the ECRI Institute have noted concerns with alarm-associated ventilator deaths. We can look at the issue of alarm-related ventilator deaths in a Cause Map, or visual root cause analysis, to see some of the causes related to these deaths, and some plans to reduce them.
Ventilator-related deaths occur when a patient who can not intake sufficient oxygen on their own (due to illness or injury) no longer receives sufficient oxygen from a ventilator. Only a few minutes of insufficient oxygen intake can result in brain damage or even death. The patients do not receive sufficient oxygen from the ventilator because it stops working due to malfunction, becomes blocked with mucus, or becomes dislodged or disconnected, potentially due to patient movement. In addition to an issue with the ventilator providing sufficient air to the patient, a death can occur when the ventilator issue is not fixed immediately.
Normally the ventilator issue is not fixed immediately because the caregiver is unaware of the issue. (Caregiver in this instance includes not only healthcare professionals but families caring for loved ones at home who are dependent on ventilators.) In these cases, the caregiver is unaware of an issue with the ventilator because they are dependent on listening for an alarm to indicate a problem, and they don’t notice the alarm. Caregivers not noticing an alarm were determined to cause 65% of ventilator deaths, according to The Joint Commission.
How do caregivers miss an alarm? There are many possible reasons. The ventilator alarm may not sound due to a malfunction. Although this issue is commonly cited, the ECRI study determined that this was the case in only 2 of 119 cases it examined. The alarm may not be sufficiently obvious to a busy caregiver. Namely, the alarm may be set inappropriately by personnel who have insufficient training on ventilator systems. Relatively few patients are on ventilators, and insufficient funding and time for training may mean that staff (or families) do not adequately understand how the ventilator works. Another cause may be that some ventilators sound only once. If you miss it, it’s done. (As a solution, ventilator manufacturers are considering alarms that continue until reset.)
Another issue related to lack of responding to alarms is an issue known as “alarm fatigue”. Caregivers can become desensitized to alarms, hearing so many every day, many of which are false alarms. Ventilators, too, can produce false alarms when a patient coughs, or rolls over.
What can be done to reduce these deaths? The first line of attack is frequent vacuuming and careful placement of the ventilator to reduce the risk of it becoming clogged or dislodged. Next, an attempt to make caregivers less dependent on alarms, and more able to see problems using other indications, and more ventilator training may increase the ability of caregivers spotting issues without waiting for alarms. As far as dealing with alarm fatigue, consideration should be taken into how alarms are presented to nurses. Too many audible alarms may lead to ignoring even the life-threatening ones. It may be better to have non-urgent issues presented as “alerts” rather than a one-time beeping.
To view the Outline and Cause Map, please click “Download PDF” above. Or click here to read more.