Auditory Sequences Presented With Spearcons Support Better Multiple Patient Monitoring Than Single-Patient Alarms: A Preclinical Simulation.

Objective: A study of auditory displays for simulated patient monitoring compared the effectiveness of two sound categories (alarm sounds indicating general risk categories from international alarm standard IEC 60601-1-8 event-specific sounds according to the type of nursing unit) and two configurations (single-patient alarms multi-patient sequences).

Background: Fieldwork in speciality-focused high dependency units (HDU) indicated that auditory alarms are ambiguous and do not identify which patient has a problem. We tested whether participants perform better using auditory displays that identify the relevant patient and problem.

Nurses' use of auditory alarms and alerts in high dependency units: A field study.

A fieldwork study conducted in six units of a major metropolitan Australian hospital revealed that nurses' attitudes towards alarms are influenced by each unit's physical layout and caseload. Additionally, nurses relied heavily on both non-actionable and actionable alarms to maintain their awareness of the status of their patients' wellbeing, and used auditory alarms beyond the scope of their intended design. Results suggest that before reducing or removing auditory alarms from the clinical environment to improve patient safety, it is important to understand how nurses in different clinical contexts use current alarm systems to extract meaningful information.

Improving the detectability of oxygen saturation level targets for preterm neonates: A laboratory test of tremolo and beacon sonifications.

Recent guidelines recommend oxygen saturation (SpO2) levels of 90%-95% for preterm neonates on supplemental oxygen but it is difficult to discern such levels with current pulse oximetry sonifications. We tested (1) whether adding levels of tremolo to a conventional log-linear pulse oximetry sonification would improve identification of SpO2 ranges, and (2) whether adding a beacon reference tone to conventional pulse oximetry confuses listeners about the direction of change. Participants using the Tremolo (94%) or Beacon (81%) sonifications identified SpO2 range significantly more accurately than participants using the LogLinear sonification (52%).