Vibrotactile displays have been trialled in a variety of cognitively demanding domains, including healthcare. Previous work suggests that vibrotactile displays can be used to inform clinicians of patient status, particularly when the displays are alarm-style alerts in surgical or critical care. The goal of the present study is to evaluate how well a common measure of patient well-being-pulse oximetry-can be communicated via an upper-arm vibrotactile prototype. Pulse oximetry includes two important vital signs: heart rate and oxygen saturation. Two displays were tested in a between-subjects design: (1) the Separated display presented heart rate first, followed by oxygen saturation; and (2) the Integrated display communicated both vital signs simultaneously. Participants identified five ranges of heart rate and three levels of oxygen saturation with very high accuracy (>90%), regardless of display type. Although participants' identification accuracy improved marginally with practice, their initial high level of performance was achieved with minimal training. Findings will inform a broader program of research in which we aim to test whether vibrotactile displays might be useful as a part of multi-modal patient monitoring.

Background: Early warning tools have been widely implemented without evidence to guide (a) recognition and (b) response team expertise optimisation. With growing databases from MET-calls and digital hospitals, we now have access to guiding information. The Queensland Adult-Deterioration-Detection-System (Q-ADDS) is widely used and requires validation.Aim: Compare the accuracy of Q-ADDS to National Early Warning Score (NEWS), Between-the-Flags (BTF) and the electronic Cardiac Arrest Risk Triage Score (eCART)).Methods: Data from the Chicago University hospital database were used. Clinical deterioration was defined as unplanned admission to ICU or death.Currently used NEWS, BTF and eCART trigger thresholds were compared with a clinically endorsed Q-ADDS variant.Results: Of 224,912 admissions, 11,706 (5%) experienced clinical deterioration. Q-ADDS (AUC 0.71) and NEWS (AUC 0.72) had similar predictive accuracy, BTF (AUC 0.64) had the lowest, and eCART (AUC 0.76) the highest. Early warning alert (advising ward MO review) had similar NPV (99.2À99.3%), for all the four tools however sensitivity varied (%: Q-ADDS = 47/NEWS = 49/BTF = 66/eCART = 40), as did alerting rate (% vitals sets: Q-ADDS = 1.4/NEWS = 3.5/ BTF = 4.1/eCART = 3.4). MET alert (advising MET/critical-care review) had similar NPV for all the four tools (99.1À99.2%), however sensitivity varied

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Prior investigations of vibrotactile displays suggest they have promise for use in the healthcare domain. This exploratory study forms part of a series exploring the use of an upper arm, continuously informing, vibrotactile display of pulse oximetry for clinicians. The study focused on the effect of vigilance on participants' accuracy and latency for detecting and identifying changes in vital sign levels. Twenty-one participants were tested in a within-subjects design in four blocks of approximately 18 minutes duration each. Two blocks were a low workload condition and the other two blocks a high workload condition. Data were analysed against thresholds of 90% for accuracy and 10 seconds for response latency and workload conditions were also compared for accuracy and latency. Participants' accuracy was not better than 90% and response latency was not shorter than 10 seconds, even in the low workload conditions. Participants were slower to detect changes in the high workload condition, and detection time worsened as the experiment progressed. Taken together, the results suggest that detecting rare events places a high strain on cognition and negatively affects performance. These findings have implications for the use of vibrotactile displays and will guide further investigations into the use of vibrotactile technology in healthcare.