Medical technology company Covidien announced on October 2 that it is backing a 2-year campaign by the AAMI Foundation‘s National Coalition for Alarm Management Safety to improve alarm management in health care.

Covidien is one of four platinum-level industry sponsors of the alarm coalition, which works to improve alarm management by generating awareness and driving discussion about its members’ clinical experiences and clinical-trial data. The company participated last spring in an Arlington, VA, kick-off meeting for the initiative.

As part of its safety undertaking, the coalition plans to publish a series of recommendations based on alarm webinars and white papers from the Healthcare Technology Safety Institute, which operates under the AAMI Foundation. The coalition will issue a list of recommended enhancements for the medical device industry to build into future software and product versions, a compilation of aggregated parameter data supplied by the member hospitals, and educational tools to teach clinicians about alarm settings and how to customize these settings for each patient.