Erlanger Health System has become the first hospital in the United States to implement the AlarmNavigator solution from Excel Medical Electronics. Erlanger is a contributor to the development and continuing field testing of this innovative software tool.
AlarmNavigator enables the hospital to analyze the occurrences of physiological alarms generated by GE patient monitoring systems, such as monitors that measure high and low heart rate, high and low blood pressure, low oxygen saturation, and cardiac arrhythmia.
“AlarmNavigator offers tremendous power as we work to improve patient safety by reducing the audible and visual alarm burden on our clinical staff for events that do not require clinical intervention," said Spears McAllester, Erlanger director of Clinical Engineering. "It will also play a key role in our efforts during 2015 to comply with the Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goal on Alarm Management."
With an understanding of the total number of alarms, the different kinds of alarms, how long each alarm lasts, and in which specific care unit alarms occur, Erlanger can customize alarm activation settings and identify potential changes to patient management processes that will enhance patient care and safety, said officials. These customized settings and process changes also will help Erlanger to comply with the objectives of the Alarm Safety National Patient Safety Goal established by The Joint Commission.
“As a unique web-based application, AlarmNavigator is fully scalable, allowing hospitals to identify and quantify alarm conditions and to generate meaningful reports that enable evidence-based decision making when approaching the clinical alarm challenge,” said John Hoffman, president of EME. “The hospital can harvest already available alarm data from patient monitoring systems by utilizing a software-only solution that leverages the existing hospital IT infrastructure."
“We are excited to integrate the AlarmNavigator program into the Erlanger Health System,” said Kevin M. Spiegel, FACHE, Erlanger president and CEO. “The safety of our patients is our top priority, and I am confident this new program will enhance the safety aspect of care for all of our patients.”