Clinical Research Directory

A Study of Silent Alarm Delivery Versus Standard Audible Alarm Delivery in Intensive Care and High Dependency Units

The goal of the trial is to learn if a strategy to eliminate audible alarm noise in intensive care and high dependency units can reduce overall noise levels, patient delirium, staff alarm fatigue, and staff burnout. Researchers will implement a silent alarm strategy in specific care units for four weeks and compare this to a separate 4 weeks where a silent strategy is not implemented. Noise, burnout, delirium levels, and staff alarm response times will be compared between the silent and non-silent units.

Intraoperative Cognitive Load in Anesthesia Nurses Across Anesthetic Phases

The goal of this observational study is to measure the cognitive load (mental effort) of anesthesia nurses during real surgical procedures at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Spain. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does cognitive load vary across the three phases of anesthetic care (induction, maintenance, and emergence/recovery)? * Is cognitive load higher during general anesthesia than during spinal anesthesia with sedation? * How do surgical specialty and patient complexity relate to cognitive load? * How does monitor alarm perception relate to cognitive load during surgery? Participants (anesthesia nurses) will complete the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) questionnaire - a validated 6-item tool measuring mental effort - three times per surgical case: after induction or spinal block, during maintenance, and after patient awakening or sedation reversal. They will also answer 4 brief questions about alarm management at the end of each case. No changes are made to clinical care. Participation adds approximately 11 minutes per surgical case.

Assessing the Impact of Monitor Maintenance Package Utilization

Bedside monitors are frequently used in monitoring vital signs of critically ill patients. Nurses working in healthcare facilities, especially in intensive care units, are required to manage devices with different alarm threshold values, categories, and types of alerts, leading to alarm fatigue. In response to this serious threat to patient safety, the FDA and The Joint Commission worked to develop strategies to address alarm fatigue in 2011. Alarm monitoring, identification of the cause, and silencing are typically performed by nurses. When reviewing alarm control studies in the literature, the CEASE care package developed by Levis et al. in 2019 was encountered. The tool was developed for personalized clinical alarm monitoring for the patient.