Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, 100 Nicolls Rd, Stony Brook, NY, 11790, USA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
J Med Syst. 2023 Oct 17;47(1):105. doi: 10.1007/s10916-023-01997-2.
In health care, auditory alarms are an important aspect of an informatics system that monitors patients and alerts clinicians attending to multiple concurrent tasks. However, the volume, design, and pervasiveness of existing Intensive Care Unit (ICU) alarms can make it difficult to quickly distinguish their meaning and importance. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of two design approaches not yet explored in a smartwatch-based alarm system designed for ICU use: (1) using audiovisual spatial colocalization and (2) adding haptic (i.e., touch) information. We compared the performance of 30 study participants using ICU smartwatch alarms containing auditory icons in two implementations of the audio modality: colocalized with the visual cue on the smartwatch's low-quality speaker versus delivered from a higher quality speaker located two feet away from participants (like a stationary alarm bay situated near patients in the ICU). Additionally, we compared participant performance using alarms with two sensory modalities (visual and audio) against alarms with three sensory modalities (adding haptic cues). Participants were 10.1% (0.24s) faster at responding to alarms when auditory information was delivered from the smartwatch instead of the higher quality external speaker. Meanwhile, adding haptic information to alarms improved response times to alarms by 12.2% (0.23s) and response times on their primary task by 10.3% (0.08s). Participants rated learnability and ease of use higher for alarms with haptic information. These small but statistically significant improvements demonstrate that audiovisual colocalization and multisensory alarm design can improve user response times.
在医疗保健领域，听觉警报是监测患者并向同时处理多项任务的临床医生发出警报的信息系统的一个重要方面。然而，现有的重症监护病房 (ICU) 警报的数量、设计和普遍性使得很难快速区分其含义和重要性。在这项研究中，我们评估了两种设计方法在基于智能手表的 ICU 警报系统中的有效性：(1) 使用视听空间共定位，(2) 添加触觉 (即触摸) 信息。我们比较了 30 名研究参与者在两种音频模式下使用包含听觉图标的 ICU 智能手表警报的性能：与智能手表低质量扬声器上的视觉提示共定位与从离参与者两米远的高质量扬声器发出的声音（例如，位于 ICU 中患者附近的固定警报站）。此外，我们比较了参与者使用具有两种感觉模态（视觉和听觉）的警报和使用具有三种感觉模态（添加触觉提示）的警报的性能。当听觉信息从智能手表而不是高质量外部扬声器发出时，参与者对警报的响应速度快 10.1%（0.24s）。同时，向警报添加触觉信息可将警报的响应时间提高 12.2%（0.23s），并将主要任务的响应时间提高 10.3%（0.08s）。参与者对具有触觉信息的警报的可学习性和易用性评价更高。这些虽然微小但具有统计学意义的改进表明，视听共定位和多感觉警报设计可以提高用户的响应时间。
