Bed alarms

bed alarms are wonderful, when there IS ENOUGH STAFF AROUND, to hear and respond.........which is rarely the case....... in 42 yrs of being a nurse, I have only observed one time when a dementia patient "self corrected" when the alarm would go off....... she was a 90+ precious little lady and would utter, "oh that darn thing, there it goes again......" and sit back down

There are many studies on the relationship between bed alarm use and falls, and they don't show that bed alarms do anything to reduce falls. Basically all they do is alert you to the fact that your patient is now on the floor. It's been suggested they may increase falls by contributing to delirium.

My facility was restraint free and alarms of any kind were considered restraints. I agree with Munro...

i think its so the mgmt can blame you for the falls. " we use alarms , therefore our hospital is safe" blablabla. They still fall, lose payment on that pt- broken hip anyone? and blame YOU for it. Doesnt matter if there was enough staff or not unless you're in a union, and even then, you will not win the scapegoat game.

I think the bed alarms get put on just so we can document we did some sort of intervention. Something looks better than nothing on paper, even if that something has been proven to be ineffectual.

now that I think of it, I had an 80 something y/o pt whowas aox3. The alarm went off just because he moved his position in bed. I swear I heard "what the bleep is that????"" come from the room. Our alarms are like car alarms they are a piercing squeal.I dont blame him atall for being angry.

I'm sure he'll give a big fat zero on the satisfaction score .

I always thought of bed alarms as basically an early warning that your patient was getting out of bed, rather than rounding and finding them on the floor.

I always thought of bed alarms as basically an early warning that your patient was getting out of bed, rather than rounding and finding them on the floor.

Depending on the setting, at least in LTC, there are chair alarms and bed alarms that are used to alert staff that a resident is in "danger" of falling; rounds don't work as well with a 1:30 or 1:60 ratio.

Sometimes the alarm is on and you find a pt on the floor; sometimes the pt is on the floor and no alarm sounds.