Publications by authors named "Rhonda Cable"
Objective: To assess whether conditional bedside alarm triggers can reduce the frequency of nonactionable alarms without compromising patient safety and enhance nursing and family satisfaction.
Study Design: Single-center, quality improvement initiative in an acute care cardiac unit and pediatric intensive care unit. Following the 4-week preintervention baseline period, bedside monitors were programmed with hierarchical time delay and conditional alarm triggers.
Background: Hospital discharge delays can negatively affect patient flow and hospital charges. Our primary aim was to increase the percentage of acute care cardiology patients discharged within 2 hours of meeting standardized medically ready (MedR) discharge criteria. Secondary aims were to reduce length of stay (LOS) and lower hospital charges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Cardiorespiratory and pulse oximetry monitoring in children who are hospitalized should balance benefits of detecting deterioration with potential harms of alarm fatigue. We developed recommendations for monitoring outside the ICU on the basis of available evidence and expert opinion.
Methods: We conducted a comprehensive literature search for studies addressing the utility of cardiorespiratory and pulse oximetry monitoring in common pediatric conditions and drafted candidate monitoring recommendations based on our findings.
Article Synopsis
- The Joint Commission emphasized the need to reduce inpatient alarm notifications to improve patient safety and nursing satisfaction; a multidisciplinary team tackled this issue in a pediatric cardiology unit using quality improvement methods.
- Over a 3.5-year period, alarm notifications were reduced by 68%, from 71 to 22 per monitored bed per day, while nursing satisfaction regarding their response to alarms improved from 32% to 76%.
- The changes were maintained for over a year without compromising patient safety, highlighting the effectiveness of technology and quality improvement strategies in managing alarm notifications.