Research Article
Reducing alarm fatigue: exploring decision structures, risks, and design
@ARTICLE{10.4108/eai.13-7-2017.152886, author={Mustafa Hussain and James Dewey and Nadir Weibel}, title={Reducing alarm fatigue: exploring decision structures, risks, and design}, journal={EAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology}, volume={3}, number={10}, publisher={EAI}, journal_a={PHAT}, year={2017}, month={7}, keywords={Alarm fatigue, cognitive heuristics, cost-benefit analysis, design considerations, fast-and-frugal trees, patient monitoring systems}, doi={10.4108/eai.13-7-2017.152886} }- Mustafa Hussain
James Dewey
Nadir Weibel
Year: 2017
Reducing alarm fatigue: exploring decision structures, risks, and design
PHAT
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.13-7-2017.152886
Abstract
Automated patient monitoring systems su er from several design problems. Among them, alarm fatigue is one of the most critical issues, as evidenced by the Sentinel Event Alert that The Joint Commission – the U.S. hospital-accrediting body – recently issued. In this study, we explore fast-and-frugal heuristics that may be used to prioritize patient alarms, while continuing to monitor patient physiological state. By using a combination of human factors methodologies and the theory of Distributed Cognition (DCog), we studied alarm fatigue and its relationship to the underlying hospital systems. We identified three specific factors that we envision to be helpful for clinical personnel: ventilator presence, number of intravenous drips, and number of medications. We discuss their application in daily hospital operation. We also address cost-benefit considerations and possible monitor designs.
Copyright © 2017 Mustafa Hussain et al., licensed to EAI. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unlimited use, distribution and reproduction in any medium so long as the original work is properly cited.
