Key result
Auditory icon alarms outperformed tonal alarms on almost all measures of overall and partial accuracy for identifying clinical alarms.
Why the study?
When more than one audible alarm sounds simultaneously, discrimination may be compromised.
Do auditory-icon-style clinical alarms improve identification accuracy compared to tonal alarms when heard simultaneously?
Do auditory-icon-style clinical alarms improve identification accuracy compared to tonal alarms when heard simultaneously?
Auditory icon alarms are easier to discriminate than traditional tonal alarms when sounding simultaneously, supporting their use in clinical environments.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
May support auditory icon alarms in future designs; leaves open real-world effects on clinical safety.
When more than one audible alarm is heard simultaneously, discrimination may be compromised. This experiment compares near-simultaneous clinical alarms in two styles, the first are the tonal 'melodies' from the 2012/2006 version of a global medical device safety standard (IEC 60601-1-8) and the second are the auditory-icon-style recommended in the 2020 version of the same standard. Sixty-six participants were required to identify the meaning and priority of four different clinical alarms for one of the two styles of alarm (between-subjects). Alarms sounded both singly and in pairs (within-subjects). Results showed that the auditory icon alarms outperformed the tonal alarms on all measures except one, both for overall accuracy (recognizing both priority and function) and for partial accuracy (recognizing priority or function but not both). The results add to the growing body of evidence supporting the use of auditory icon alarms in clinical environments.
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Edworthy et al. (2021) studied this question. Auditory-icon-style alarms vs. Tonal melodies alarms was evaluated on Overall accuracy (recognizing both priority and function) and partial accuracy. Auditory icon alarms outperformed tonal alarms on almost all measures of overall and partial accuracy for identifying clinical alarms.
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