Table 4.

Importance of alarm issues related to the cardiac monitors (n=24).

Item	Statement	Preproject		Postproject
		Item response, mean	Mean rankinga	Item response, mean	Mean ranking	P
1b	Frequent false alarms, which lead to reduced attention or response to alarms when they occur	2.40	1	3.40	1	.11
2b	Difficulty in understanding the priority of an alarm	3.00	2	4.32	2	.07
3b	Noise competition from nonclinical alarms and pages	3.95	3	4.55	3	.50
4c	Lack of available policy on appropriate alarm parameters for individualized patients	4.40	4	5.80	9	.08
5c	The need to frequently reset alarm settings every time they revert back to default when the monitor is disconnected from the patient	4.42	5	5.16	5	.24
6d	Difficulty in hearing alarms when they occur, especially from outside patient room	4.47	6	5.37	7	.36
7d	Difficulty in setting alarms properly because of the complexity of the monitor	4.84	7	5.21	6	.70
8b	Lack of training on alarm systems	4.90	8	4.70	4	.83
9d	Difficulty in setting alarms properly because of lack of knowledge on the appropriate limits for my patient condition	5.42	9	5.58	8	.75

^aItem response means were ranked from 1 (most important) to 9 (least important).

^bThese statements were adopted from the Healthcare Technology Foundation (HTF) survey.

^cThese statements were added to the survey to reflect the cardiac monitors.

^dThese statements were modified from the HTF survey. Original statements were as follows: item 6 “Difficulty in hearing alarms when they occur”; items 7 and 9 “Difficulty in setting alarms properly.”