Key result
Situated visual alarm displays improved nurses' alarm event detection compared to standard alarms (0.608 vs. 0.438, P<0.001) and increased interpretation accuracy (0.453 vs. 0.243, P<0.001).
Why the study?
Poor performance of opaque automation is difficult to detect and increases failure cascades, raising the question of whether situated visual alarm displays can support machine fitness assessment.
Do situated visual alarm displays improve hazard recognition and alarm accuracy assessment by nurses?
Do situated visual alarm displays improve hazard recognition and alarm accuracy assessment by nurses?
Absolute Event Rate: 0.608% vs 0.438%
p-value: p=<0.001
Situated visual alarm displays improve nurses' detection of hazardous events and mitigate the negative effects of poor opaque automation performance.
May aid simulated alarm vigilance; leaves open translation to real-world patient outcomes or practice change.
Determine if situated visual alarm displays can support machine fitness assessment (MFA), facilitating improved hazard recognition and alarm accuracy assessment in the presence of inaccurate alarms. Poor performance of opaque automation is more difficult to detect, which increases the likelihood of cascades resulting in overall system failure. MFA reduces the negative impact of poor automation performance. Integrated alarm visualizations were shown to 32 nurses for 10 cases focused on patient outcome and 17 focused on alarm quality, all using real patient data. Five of the ten outcome cases would ultimately result in an emergency (unbeknownst to the nurse). Alarm cases ended with a true, false, or unnecessary alarm. Responses for nurses’ concern, confidence, alarm quality, and intended response were recorded. Qualitative analysis of interviews was performed. Using the situated visual alarm displays, nurses reported less confidence (6.5 vs. 9.1, p < 0.001), more concern (5.4 vs. 1.6, p < 0.001), and more urgent responses for emergency cases. Their alarm event detection was better than the alarms’ detection (0.608 vs. 0.438, p < 0.001), as was their interpretation accuracy (0.453 vs. 0.243, p < 0.001). Nurses showed differentiated concern for emergency cases, nonemergency cases with alarms, and those without alarms (5.4 vs. 3.8 vs. 1.6, p < 0.001). Situated visual alarm displays combining visual trends with alarm signals improves detection of hazardous events and mitigates the negative effects of poor opaque automation performance.
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Rayo et al. (2022) studied Alarm fatigue and machine fitness assessment (n=32). Situated visual alarm displays vs. Standard alarms / opaque automation was evaluated on Alarm event detection (p=<0.001). Situated visual alarm displays improved nurses' alarm event detection compared to standard alarms (0.608 vs. 0.438, P<0.001) and increased interpretation accuracy (0.453 vs. 0.243, P<0.001).
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