Did you hear the piece on NPR's Morning Edition this morning? You can hear it at the link below.
Basically it talks about what a lot of us already know. More is not better with device alarms in healthcare. Alarms go off too often in hospitals, and after a while we tend to tune them out. This can lead to deleterious consequences for the patients.
Apparently the Joint Commission has made a top goal to decrease alarms that are not needed. This will lead to better patient outcomes (and happier nurses too!)