Sonification and Multiple-Patient Monitoring (2014-2017)

Auditory alarms on medical equipment are meant to save lives. If there are too many nuisance alarms, though, staff become unresponsive to all alarms: this is 'alarm fatigue'. Alarm fatigue can lead to patient harm or even death, particularly if staff must divide their attention across multiple patients. We conjecture that a form of auditory display called sonification might be extended to multiple-patient monitoring. In a series of three studies we develop and test novel sonifications for remote monitoring of multiple patients. We also test whether a head-worn display unit can help staff orient auditory attention effectively across multiple patients without distracting from current tasks. Outcomes will offer solutions to alarm fatigue.