title: Learnability and discriminability of melodic medical equipment alarms.
abstract: Melodic alarms proposed in the IEC 60601-1-8 standard for medical electrical equipment were tested for learnability and discriminability. Thirty-three non-anaesthetist participants learned the alarms over two sessions of practice, with or without mnemonics suggested in the standard. Fewer than 30% of participants could identify the alarms with 100% accuracy at the end of practice. Confusions persisted between pairs of alarms, especially if mnemonics were used during learning (p = 0.011). Participants responded faster (p < 0.00001) and more accurately (p = 0.002) to medium priority alarms than to high priority alarms, even though they rated the high priority alarms as sounding more urgent (p < 0.00001). Participants with at least 1 year of formal musical training identified the alarms more accurately (p = 0.0002) than musically untrained participants, and found the task easier overall (p < 0.00001). More intensive studies of the IEC 60601-1-8 alarms are needed for their effectiveness to be determined.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Engineering and Human Factors, ARC Key Centre for Human Factors, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Sanderson
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wee
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lacherez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D003422:Critical Care; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008568:Memory; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D009146:Music; D011793:Queensland; D011930:Reaction Time; D017751:Safety Management / Q000592:standards*