Evaluation of tactile cues for simulated patients’ status under high and low workload

Abstract

The intensive care unit (ICU) is one of the most complex areas in hospital care, as patients require continuous monitoring by physicians and nurses. Currently, clinicians are informed about the patients’ physiological conditions through visual color-coded signals and auditory alarms. Previous studies have shown that vibrotactile cues can be used to inform clinicians of a patient’s vital signs status, either in a unisensory or multisensory alarm scheme. We present the results of the first in a series of experiments devoted to examining the feasibility to use tactile cues to convey detailed physiological information about more than one patient, rendered through a lower-leg tactile interface. The current experiment utilized a simulated clinical environment with 14 undergraduate students. Participants were required to interpret information delivered by the tactile interface, for two different patients, while they performed a continuous cognitively demanding task. Results indicate that under such conditions, it is possible to deliver critical information with a successful interpretation rate of approximately 85% but not without cost to the continuous demanding task. Future experiments should evaluate more tactile patterns in order to increase their interpretation success rate, and evaluate the use of these tactile cues with clinicians.

Comparing auditory and tactile cues to inform clinicians of patients’ vital signs

“…The instructions and explanations regarding the tactile alarms lasted approximately 3 minutes, followed by a one-minute practice session with the continuous task. Results from our previous experiments also support this idea, as identification rates for similar complex tactile alarms were significantly higher when the practice session was longer (approximately 5 minutes) (Katzman et al, 2019). Additionally, personality and perceived workload differences found in the nursing cohort, which might have also affect task performance (Deb & Claudio, 2015).…”

“…Based on Wickens' (2008) Multiple Resources Theory (MRT) and the fact that the tactile modality remains almost unused in the current work environment, the concept of delivering alarm information via tactile cues has been examined. Our previous work showed over 80% correct identification rates of complex tactile cues when tested on undergraduate students (Katzman et al, 2019). This study aimed to compare clinicians' accuracy and response time to alarm information represented as tactile cues and auditory alarms.…”

Sleeping Soundlessly in the Intensive Care Unit

“…Multisensory alarms may be an additional way to increase the information available for users that is given without overpowering the sensory stream. Additionally, multisensory alarms communicate important information without decreasing demanding task performance [53] as well as increase cognitive processing speed and attentional capacity [54].…”

Multisensory alarm to benefit alarm identification and decrease workload: a feasibility study

“…Outside of medicine, devices such as smart watches have successfully integrated vibrotactile notifications without an audible cue. Furthermore, wearable vibrotactile devices have the potential to be specifically tailored to route physiological information from specific patients to specific personnel [17]; thereby, reducing the need for medical personnel to determine if an auditory alarm is relevant to their patient. This reduction of auditory alarm burden may help reduce noise pollution in the ICU and thereby reduce alarm desensitization.…”