Response times to visual and auditory alarms during anaesthesia

Anaesthesia and Intensive Care
R W Morris, S R Montano

Abstract

To measure and compare the response times to audibly or visually presented alarms in the operating theatre. The time taken by anaesthetists to cancel randomly generated visual and audible false alarms was measured during maintenance of routine anaesthesia. Alarms were generated and times recorded by a laptop computer on the anaesthetic machine. The visual signal was a 15 mm diameter red light positioned next to the physiological monitor mounted on top of the machine. The audible alarm was a Sonalert buzzer of the type incorporated into many medical devices. Nineteen anaesthetists provided a total of seventy-two hours of data (887 alarm events). The response times to visual alarms was significantly longer than to audible alarms (P = 0.001 Mann Whitney U test). [Table: see text] The ability of anaesthetists to appreciate changes in patient physiology may be limited by delays in noticing information presented by monitors. The rapid response to the vast majority of alarms indicates a high level of vigilance among the anaesthetists studied. However, this study suggests that it is safer to rely on audible rather than visual alarms when time-critical information such as oxygenation, heart beat and ventilator disconnection is concerned...Continue Reading

References

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Citations

Jan 29, 2002·Anesthesia and Analgesia·Robert G Loeb, W Tecumseh Fitch
Mar 7, 2003·Canadian Journal of Anaesthesia = Journal Canadien D'anesthésie·Todd A Mondor, G Allen Finley
Jun 25, 2005·Anesthesia and Analgesia·Penelope M SandersonW John Russell
Aug 27, 2005·Anaesthesia and Intensive Care·R W Morris, P J Mohacsi
Aug 31, 2006·Journal of Clinical Monitoring and Computing·Akihiro TakeuchiNoriaki Ikeda
Feb 13, 2001·Anaesthesia·A BadrakumarG Lindhoff
Mar 21, 2013·Critical Care : the Official Journal of the Critical Care Forum·Felix SchmidDaniel A Reuter
Apr 21, 1999·Anaesthesia·G M Sanders, A Ho
Jul 29, 2008·Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology·Aaron M FieldsJeremy W Cannon
Jul 29, 2005·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·R Scott EvansGeorge E Thomsen
Apr 24, 2007·Human Factors·Marcus O Watson, Penelope Sanderson
Sep 7, 2002·Physiological Measurement·T Walsh, P C W Beatty
Jun 19, 2004·Ergonomics·G Robert ArrabitoKimberley Kent

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