Auditory Alarms: From Alerting to Informing
DOI: 10.1177/154193120004400160
archive: indexed pipeline: cataloged
Abstract
The current alarm and warning systems in medical domains are integrated into patient monitoring devices and are centered around the concept of alerting operators to potential problems without specifying the specific nature of the problem. In contrast, informative auditory alarms and warning systems have been proposed for next-generation monitoring equipment. These “auditory displays” would present meaningful diagnostic information to care providers while not interrupting their other activities, and not demanding visual attention. Our work has documented the problems in the critical care setting with alarms. We report here the results of observations made during experiments conducted using eye-tracking techniques to determine patterns of information during real and simulated anesthesia cases. We classify monitoring behaviors into four categories of information seeking, and discuss the implications of these behaviors for design of informative auditory displays.
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