[Audit of the bedside monitor alarms in a critical care unit]. / Auditoría de las alarmas del monitor de cabecera en una unidad de cuidados críticos.

ABSTRACT

AIMS: Quantifying and evaluating the response to the bedside monitor alarms (BMA) by nurses in intensive care unit (ICU). METODOLOGY Prospective observational study (October 2011-January 2012). Randomized blind audit on alarm management. Alarm programming and alarm limits were related to experience in ICU. We evaluated the response to BMA with the variables alarm type (relevant/not relevant/alert) and response type. Descriptive analysis of variables for multivariate ANOVA and Chi-square test with SPSS 17.0. RESULTS: 434 audits were analyzed. The programming was Blood pressure (BP) 88.25%, heart rate (HR) 98.62% O(2) saturation (SO) 96.79%, respiratory rate (FR) 65.75%. The alarms originated were BP 49.73%, 10.75% HR, 39.25% SO, 3.27% FS. The nurse responded to 93.3% of them and 50% were treated before 10 sec. 56.16% of the alarms were not relevant, 25.12% relevant and 18.72% alerting. 41.8% were due to handling. CONCLUSION: The alarms are programmed/attended by the nurse and there is uniformity in programming/selection limits. 25% of BMA carried therapeutic attitude.