Integrating Hospital Alarm Notifications with Digital Signage in Healthcare

Hospital alarm strategy is important for patient safety. And while it’s true that emergencies require the maximum attention from the staff, there’s also an issue of alarm fatigue. This article looks into alarm safety in hospitals and creating a more efficient emergency reaction system with digital signage technology. You will learn how to use Kitcast to combat alarm fatigue.

Challenges in healthcare alarm management

Patients’ health and well-being depend on effective hospital alarm management. This, in turn, leads to a higher level of patient satisfaction that benefits a hospital in the long run. However, creating a streamlined alarm safety in hospitals is a complex task. Healthcare institutions face many challenges. 

Hospital alarm management is a thorough and sophisticated process. It is also a sum of things. You’ve got the technological part and the human part. While there can be state-of-the-art tech that enables hospital alarms, it’s also the qualifications of your staff that matter to react to challenges adequately. 

Thus, to have the best alarm safety in hospitals, you should have these two elements working great together.

Let’s look at the main challenges that healthcare institutions face when it comes to hospital alarm management.

Alarm Fatigue

Here’s the most serious and impactful one. Alarm fatigue is a situation in which staff responsible for reacting to emergencies gets overwhelmed by the volume of alarms. This is caused by false and non-urgent alarms that lead to a “fatigue” state. 

It’s an alarming (pun intended) situation that plagues many healthcare institutions. Here are some stats. 

– 350 alarms per patient, per day, is the average number of alarms per patient, Phillips

– 76.9 – 99.4% of these alarms are false positives or non-actionable

– Alarm fatigue is recurrently named among the “Top 10 Health Technology Hazards”

When fatigue hits, hospitals can’t provide efficient care to patients which leads to deterioration of service and creates additional health risks. The response time becomes delayed and actionable alarms can be left without response.

Inefficient communication

There’s another challenge that makes alarm systems less efficient. Lack of clear communication paired with alarm fatigue is a serious problem for hospitals. 

When the alarms are not categorized according to severity and don’t have the necessary highlights to distinguish one from another, it becomes very difficult for clinicians to react.

There’s also an issue of technological limitations and lack of flexibility.

Usually, hospitals only rely on very static devices (such as pagers or bedside monitors) that don’t have connectivity and are isolated from one another. This can lead to confusion and an elongated response time. 

How does digital signage technology transform hospital alarm management? 

Displays bring positive change to the way hospital alarm management is done. This technology:

• serves as an additional communication tool that helps combat alarm fatigue
• organizes processes more efficiently
• benefits internal communication
• enhances staff learning. 

These are some very ambitious general words. But how does it look in practice?

Kitcast is the best digital signage solution on the market for effortless yet powerful hospital alarm management. 

Our software is cloud-based and that means that hospitals don’t need to manage costly servers or operate big IT teams. Everything your healthcare institution needs to create a hospital alarm digital signage system is a screen and an Apple TV. 

The deployment is done by connecting the Apple TV device to each screen, downloading the Kitcast app and following a straightforward linking process.

Here are examples of how Kitcast can transform your hospital alarm system

Visual alerts highlighted according to urgency

Use our customizable templates or design your own alarm notifications. Categorize them according to urgency. With digital signage, you can be sure that the emergency notifications are seen by nurses. 

Critical alarms shown on screens

When it comes to critical alarms, time matters. Kitcast digital signage allows you to show alerts immediately. 

Centralized and remotely controlled alarm system

You have full control over your digital signage network. Kitcast Dashboard allows you to group screens according to locations.

It’s possible to broadcast real-time alerts and ensure visibility for all staff. The system is fully remote and you can add as many team members as you want to manage it more efficiently. 

Contextual alarm information

The more specific the alarm is the better the response. Digital signage enables contextual alarms. They can include info about the patient’s exact location, details of the condition, prior health emergencies and specific needs. 

Real-time alarm information during hospital emergencies

While alarms are already challenging in ordinary situations, the issue becomes even more complex during hospital emergencies (such as mass casualty incidents, natural disasters, fires). Screens make it easier to disseminate information and broadcast the alarms in real time. 

Scalability

You need one app to control any number of screens. This means that once you learn the basics of operating with the software, every new screen you add to the network follows the same principle. Hospitals don’t need to focus on deploying other communication tools when digital signage is used. This unified quality and scalable growth make it a perfect alarm tool.

Try Kitcast now for FREE