Distractions in Clinical Practice: Exploring Ethical and Legal Issues Arising from Alarm Fatigue and Patient Safety
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ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS:
Distractions are everywhere. They may include cellphones, multiple alarms sounding, overhead paging, monitors beeping, and various interruptions that disrupt your clinical practice.
Give an example of an ethical or legal issue that may arise if a patient has a poor outcome or sentinel event because of a distraction such as alarm fatigue. What does the evidence reveal about alarm fatigue and distractions in healthcare when it comes to patient safety?
HOW TO WORK ON THIS ASSIGNMENT (EXAMPLE ESSAY / DRAFT)
When they hurt patients, distractions in healthcare settings can raise major ethical and legal questions. Alarm fatigue, whereby doctors get desensitized to repeated alarms and may fail to respond to vital alarms promptly, is one such distraction that has grown in popularity in recent years.
A breach of the ethical principle of non-maleficence, or the responsibility to avoid harming patients, is an illustration of an ethical problem that may result from alarm fatigue and patient injury. A healthcare provider may be held accountable for breaking this rule if they ignore a crucial alarm because they are alarm fatigued and a patient is harmed as a result.
Additionally, if a patient or their family decides to sue the hospital or healthcare practitioner for medical malpractice, there can be legal repercussions. Due to alarm fatigue or other distractions, the provider could be accused of failing to deliver the proper care.
Alarm fatigue is a serious issue in healthcare settings, according to studies, and up to 99% of warnings may be erroneous or clinically inconsequential, according to some estimates. Clinicians may start ignoring alerts completely or take longer to react to crucial alarms as a result of the persistent barrage of sirens.
Various tactics have been suggested to deal with alarm fatigue and other distractions in healthcare settings. These include the creation of evidence-based alarm management standards, the application of technology to lessen the frequency of false alarms, and the introduction of educational initiatives to improve the ability of healthcare professionals to identify and respond to significant alerts.
In conclusion, distractions like alarm fatigue can seriously compromise patient safety and have moral and legal repercussions for healthcare facilities and providers. To guarantee that patients receive the best treatment possible, healthcare organizations must take measures to overcome alarm fatigue and other distractions.
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