Nurses working in the ICU of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam are exposed to a vast amount of sounds from medical equipment. The amount of alarms nurses cope with causes alarms fatigue, which causes nurses to become desensitised to alarms. Not only is this a threat to patient safety, it also causes stress.
Care Tunes is a product design that allows nurses to listen to music to monitor their patients. By wearing an earpiece that plays the music, nurses can constantly be aware of their patients health without having to listen to the cacophony that is caused by alarms.
In an iterative design process several versions of
this concept were designed, tested and evaluated. Simultaneously, research was conducted into the experiences nurses of the Erasmus MC have regarding sounds.
This research into the ICU context reveals insights into the experience and underlying mechanisms of alarm fatigue. Among them are the low level of information that alarms carry and the range of personal preferences nurses have when it comes to setting boundaries
for their alarms. Alarms also tend to be used as a reaffirmation by using narrow alarm limits, causing more alarms to sound.
Care Tunes attempts to offer much more information in the sonification of patient data. This lets nurses listen to a pleasant musical stream to get all the information they need about their patient.