Do mnemonics help nurses learn melodic medical equipment alarms?

Abstract

We tested the melodic alarms and mnemonics proposed in the international standard for alarms used in medical electrical equipment (IEC 60601-1-8) for learnability and discriminability, with 14 registered nurses over two days, approximately a week apart. Two learning modes (Mnemonics and No Mnemonics) were examined in computer administered tests. The first experimental group was supplied with mnemonics while the second group was not supplied with a strategy. On Day 1, participants were introduced to the alarms. On Day 2, participants were tested and then allowed to relearn the alarms in a similar way to Day 1. The mean accuracy across all alarms other than the General alarm was poor (44% correct). Only one participant reached the learning criterion by the end of Day 2. Furthermore, participants with formal musical training identified the alarms with greater accuracy than those without (p=0.004). Our findings indicate that the identified problems need to be addressed before these alarms are introduced in practice.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Block

F. E.

Rouse

J. D.

Hakala

Thompson

C. L.

(2000). A proposed new set of alarm sounds which satisfy standards and rationale to encode source information. Journal of Clinical Monitoring, 16, 541–546.

Edworthy

(1994). The design and implementation of nonverbal auditory warnings. Applied Ergonomics, 25(4), 202–210.

Edworthy

Hellier

(2005). Fewer but better auditory alarms will improve patient safety. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 14, 212–215.

IEC60601-1-8. (2003-08-14). Medical electrical equipment Part 1–8. Geneva, Switzerland: International Electrotechnical Commission.

Lacherez

Seah

Sanderson

(2006) Overlapping Melodic alarms are almost indiscriminable. Human Factors.

Meredith

Edworthy

(1994). Sources of Confusion in Intensive therapy unit alarms. In Stanton

(Ed.), Human factors in alarm design (pp. 207–219): Taylor & Francis, London.

Sanderson

Wee

Seah

Lacherez

(2006). Auditory alarms, medical standards and urgency. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Displays (ICAD2006). Queen Mary University of London, 20–23 June.

Sanderson

Wee

Lacherez

(2006). Learnability and discriminability of melodic medical equipment alarms. Anaesthesia, 61, 142–147.

Williams

Beatty

P. C. W.

(2005). Measuring the performance of audible alarms for anaesthesia. Physiological Measurement, 26, 571–581.