The impact of an intervention to improve intrapartum maternal vital sign monitoring and reduce alarm fatigue.
Many labor and delivery wards have implemented continuous fetal and maternal monitoring to improve patient safety, but this continuous monitoring may also have unintended consequences, such as alarm fatigue. This labor and delivery ward sought to decrease the overuse of monitoring, and related false or missed alarms, on low-risk obstetrical patients. Through the development and implementation of a vital sign guideline assessment, the rate of alarms was decreased with no increase in maternal complications.