Abstract
Whether or not a physiological monitor will issue an alarm in a certain condition depends largely on the particular settings of the device. To be able to safely use the monitor, the user has to be aware of these settings. We addressed a potential contribution of interface design to users’ awareness of devices settings by analyzing a monitor’s user interface. Based on a previous analysis of incident reports, we selected the following functions for further analysis: Deactivating individual alarms (SpO2), changing alarm limits (arhythmia), muting alarm volume and completely disabling the measurement of a particular parameter (blood pressure). We applied two different methods of assessing interface usability: an analytical approach supported by the formal-analytical method mAIXuse and an empirical approach, i.e. observing whether expert users in a simulated care setting were aware of the various causes underlying alarm failures. In the simulation study, seven experienced intensive care nurses took part. The mAIXuse analysis showed that detecting altered alarm limits, the muting of alarms and the disabled measurement should be somewhat less easy than detecting the deactivation of an alarm. With regard to comprehension, alarm limits and disabled measurement were judged to be inferior to muting and blocking of alarms. During the usability-test, not a single user identified the muted alarm and the altered alarm limits as potential causes for the absence of an audible alarm without being prompted. By contrast, three of seven nurses directly recognized that the SpO2 alarm was blocked. The results of the formal-analytical analysis and the simulation study will be compared and conclusions regarding the contribution of the monitor display to users’ awareness of alarm settings will be discussed.
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Lange, K., Janß, A., Manjili, S.F., Nowak, M., Lauer, W., Radermacher, K. (2019). Users’ Awareness of Alarm Settings. In: Bagnara, S., Tartaglia, R., Albolino, S., Alexander, T., Fujita, Y. (eds) Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018). IEA 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 818. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96098-2_57
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96098-2_57
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