Case Study: NCH Healthcare System achieves a 69% reduction in non-actionable alarms with Cerner's CareAware®

NCH decreases nuisance alarms with alarm management reporting

NCH Healthcare System, a two-hospital, 715-bed system in Naples, Fla., faced severe alarm fatigue as nursing staff were overwhelmed by excessive nuisance alarms that reduced efficiency and distracted from patient care. Initial attempts to route secondary alarms to nurses’ iPhones increased alerts, prompting the organization to rethink its alarm strategy.

Partnering with Cerner and using CareAware, NCH formed an interdisciplinary Alarm Safety Committee and launched an Alarm Management Shift Report to analyze real-time alarm frequency by bed and hour, along with practical interventions (improved skin prep, daily lead changes, etc.). Implemented on a 45-bed telemetry unit, the approach cut non-actionable alarms by 69%—from 255,912 in January to 79,486 in April—and has been rolled out to other units, with plans for Hot Spot dashboards and APACHE Outcomes integration to link alarms to patient outcomes.

NCH Healthcare System

Kevin Smith

Nurse Manager