Artificial Intelligence Could Solve Alarm Fatigue in Hospitals

Have you heard of the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf? It goes something like this: once upon a time, there was a shepherd boy who would cry for help for an impending wolf attack. This was naturally taken seriously by the village’s shepherds who would go on to protect their herd. However, it turns out that the fun-loving boy was just teasing the villagers and there was no wolf in sight. But the problem was, he would do this repeatedly until no one would take him seriously, even on the day when he saw an actual wolf and no one heeded his call for help. This analogy aligns very well with what is known as alarm fatigue in the healthcare world. This phenomenon refers to the point when caregivers become desensitized to alarm signs from the myriad of devices emitting a cacophony of beeps all day in the clinical setting. With as many as 187 alarms per bed per day, of which 72% to 99% being false alarms, it’s understandable that alarm fatigue came to exist, with healthcare practitioners at risk of disregarding important alerts which might even be fatal. So how bad is it and how does A.I. come into play? As the healthcare sector adopts more and more technologies, the increased number of tech-aided devices from ventilators through feeding pumps to vital sign machines will bring along their own alerts for warnings, but the truth is, most don’t require clinical intervention and are due to improper readings resulting from devices and alarms not set up for individual patient...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Artificial Intelligence Healthcare Design Hospital hospital design Source Type: blogs