Too lazy to adjust your alarms? or Don't know how?

10 Just a rant:
Please- reset, adjust, silence, or WHATEVER your alarms on your monitored patient. If you don't care that your patients SBP is< 95 then set your alarm to 90, if your patient always has a O2 sat of 90% and that is OK, DON'T LEAVE YOUR ALARM AT
<92%. When your vent is screaming "apnea" or "low minute volume" every 30 sec, your patient isn't ready to wean, please turn thier rate back up or change the alarm parameter to something you do care about. That way when a vent alarms it lets me know there may be something wrong with a patients breathing that needs to be looked into. I have patients too and if your alarms are constantly ringing I can't tell if one of my patients is in trouble without being in front of my bedside constantly. With 2-3 patients that isn't possible. If it dosen't intrest you, that parameter shouldn't be set to ring off at that level- thus the word "alarm". Not only that, but some patients may actually want to sleep at night when they are critically ill- they can be funny that way. When your alarms are playing a constant symphony of bells none of the patients can sleep. That gets into sleep deprivation/ICU psychosis, confusion, aggitation..... not very helpful.
In the ER I work in, it is against hospital policy to adjust the alarm settings....so....I'm not too lazy or don't know how...it's that I am not allowed. Does it annoy me? Yes, but I have learned to live with it.

I turned the volume down on my home health patient's vent because it made me jump through the ceiling and it was not necessary for it to be loud enough to wake the dead, since I was sitting at the bedside, looking directly at the patient and the vent. Someone would come along behind me and crank it up again. So unnecessary.

Sounds like an issue that needs to be addressed.Can't help you in this forum, though.I am hopeful you can find a way to explain this to your co-workers effectively.Sounds like both your patients and your nerves need some rest!

Quote from SuzieQ_ScrapperIn the ER I work in, it is against hospital policy to adjust the alarm settings....so....I'm not too lazy or don't know how...it's that I am not allowed. Does it annoy me? Yes, but I have learned to live with it.

Not only were we not allowed to change our preset alarms, the silence and custom alarm functions were disabled at the factory, so we couldn't anyway.Why not work to change it? B/C it didn't bother us enough. There were serious issues that needed our attention. It bothered the patients, they complained all the time. We encouraged them to make note of it on their satisfaction surveys. I assume they did, but nothing ever changed. TPTB wanted them on, full volume, factory settings. So be it.

I amazed with how many "we aren't allowed" resopnses have come up. I guess it goes without saying, if your policy is nurses aren't able to make appropriate decisions about what constitutes an alarming condition in thier patient, there isn't much else you can do about it but try to find a job where you get at least a modicum of respect and keep trying to get the policy changed while you are stuck where you are working. I guess I was referring to people who work at a hospital where nurses are entitled to make reasonable decisions about thier patients individual needs but choose not to.

Not adjusting alarms isn't just annoying, it's well known (or at least I thought it was well known), that poorly adjusted alarms is less safe and effective for patients. (Your patients are worse off if you don't adjust your alarms).

If it is going off frequently your mind will automatically reduce the priority of the alarm no matter how concientous you are.

At my previous job we were 'not allowed' to adjust alarm limits. At my current hospital, they are starting an initiative to adjust alarms to each pt (for example, changing the sat low limit to 89%) to prevent alarm fatigue.As a side note, I recently saw a monitor that had the upper limit alarm for systolic BP set to 277. Not sure how they chose such an exact number (why not just go for 280?). Whatever the reason, pretty sure it was too high!

We used to turn the volume down at night as well. Nope ... can't do that any more.

Quote from suannaI amazed with how many "we aren't allowed" resopnses have come up. I guess it goes without saying, if your policy is nurses aren't able to make appropriate decisions about what constitutes an alarming condition in thier patient, there isn't much else you can do about it but try to find a job where you get at least a modicum of respect and keep trying to get the policy changed while you are stuck where you are working. I guess I was referring to people who work at a hospital where nurses are entitled to make reasonable decisions about thier patients individual needs but choose not to.

Great post. .......i have learned via nursing how bothersome background noise is to me, and some of my patients. Some nurses can work through the beeps and buzzers without a second thought. Some patients can have a conversation with their families and go for 30 mins with the IV beeping. To me, it drives me CRAZY-er....if I am in a room helping with whatever, I have noticed that some nurses just let the things beep.....not me. It's a total distraction. Just wanted to share my "aha" moment. Interesting stuff. P.S. I will learn how to reset my alarms, I'm not lazy, I am just really sensitive to noise, and will immediately cut it off whether it's in one of my rooms, or in one of yours........