Facilitating intuitive interaction with complex devices for older users. Poorly designed interfaces impact more strongly on older people. Helping designers to make more intuitive interfaces for older community members has great potential for improving their lives and health, and thus benefiting the community generally. Making modern devices easier for older people to use will allow them to participate more fully in society and/or the workplace. This will also help to prevent them from becoming i ....Facilitating intuitive interaction with complex devices for older users. Poorly designed interfaces impact more strongly on older people. Helping designers to make more intuitive interfaces for older community members has great potential for improving their lives and health, and thus benefiting the community generally. Making modern devices easier for older people to use will allow them to participate more fully in society and/or the workplace. This will also help to prevent them from becoming isolated and possibly depressed. This project will apply intuitive interaction to healthcare devices that older people use, which can save costly mistakes and even lives.Read moreRead less
Sonification and Multiple-Patient Monitoring. Auditory alarms on medical equipment are meant to save lives. If there are too many nuisance alarms, though, staff become unresponsive to all alarms: this is "alarm fatigue". Alarm fatigue can lead to patient harm or even death, particularly if staff must divide their attention across multiple patients. This project conjectures that a form of auditory display called sonification might be extended to multiple-patient monitoring. In a series of three s ....Sonification and Multiple-Patient Monitoring. Auditory alarms on medical equipment are meant to save lives. If there are too many nuisance alarms, though, staff become unresponsive to all alarms: this is "alarm fatigue". Alarm fatigue can lead to patient harm or even death, particularly if staff must divide their attention across multiple patients. This project conjectures that a form of auditory display called sonification might be extended to multiple-patient monitoring. In a series of three studies this project will develop and test novel sonifications for remote monitoring of multiple patients. It also tests whether a head-worn display unit can help staff orient auditory attention effectively across multiple patients without distracting from current tasks. Outcomes will offer solutions to alarm fatigue.Read moreRead less
Interruptions, work coordination, and resilience. Evidence is emerging of an association between the number of workplace interruptions that hospital clinicians experience and outcomes such as clinical errors that could cause patient harm. However there is still no direct evidence that interruptions cause clinical errors. This project seeks such evidence, but also views interruptions as an integral part of normal work coordination. This project investigates the origin and need for interruptions, ....Interruptions, work coordination, and resilience. Evidence is emerging of an association between the number of workplace interruptions that hospital clinicians experience and outcomes such as clinical errors that could cause patient harm. However there is still no direct evidence that interruptions cause clinical errors. This project seeks such evidence, but also views interruptions as an integral part of normal work coordination. This project investigates the origin and need for interruptions, tests causal connections between interruptions and errors, and explores workplace improvements as a means to handle concerns about interruptions. This research will provide a solid basis from which clinical leaders can formulate policy about distractions and interruptions in the healthcare workplace. Read moreRead less