Webinar to Help Nurses Manage Alarm Fatigue

Advance Healthcare Network for Nurses is hosting a webinar on the issue of nurses facing alarm fatigue. The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, October 16, 2014 from 3:00pm-4:00pm ET. The webinar will provide information about:

• Current literature on alarm fatigue.
• Systems and human issues that contribute to alarm fatigue.
• A system wide approach that can be developed to address alarm fatigue.

The webinar will also feature a question and answer session. Registration is available here. The webinar is sponsored by Covidien.

An INQRI-funded study found a unique way to use different sounds to reduce alarm fatigue and help keep patients safe. Led by Tracey Yap and Jay Kim the team used music to reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers. The study used music to cue patients in long-term care facilities to move in order to avoid getting pressure ulcers. The music also cued staff to help to move those patients who could not move on their own.

Detecting and Controlling Significant Pain in the ICU through Assessment Tools

Significant pain is very common in critically-ill adult ICU patients and patient self-assessment is not always the best way for nurses to record, report or treat their patients’ needs, according to an article on Advance Healthcare Network for Nurses.

To address this issue, nurses and other medical professionals need to have the right tools, including validated, standardized pain assessment plans, according to nursing experts quoted in the article. The most common verbal scale tool for adult ICU patients is the Verbal Numerical Rating Scale, where pain is rated on a scale from zero to 10. Non-verbal scales consist of patients pointing to a number on a board or paper, and nurses asking the patient to shake their head yes or no while following their facial expressions and vital signs for indications of pain. Another tool is the mnemonic OLDCART:

•    O = onset
•    L = location
•    D = duration
•    C = characteristics of the pain on a 0-10 scale
•    A = aggravating factors
•    R = relieving factors
•    T = treatment

Tools for patients who are not able to communicate at all are also outlined in the article.

The INQRI funded study: SPEACS 2: Improving Patient Communication and Quality Outcomes in the ICU examined the value of a nurse-generated and nurse-led innovation on ICU patient care outcomes, including pain symptom management.