Brief Summary

The ability of nurses to quickly learn and distinguish various alarm sounds (both high and medium priority) is discussed. Nurses with and without musical knowledge and tests while the nurses are doing other tasks are included. Eight different alarms were used, and the actual patterns of the sounds used are discussed. To help better understand the melodies, mnemonics were created as an aid to learning these. Participants were tested on two days with a 6 to 11 day break in between the two. Conclusions: • Only one out of 22 could identify 100 % of the alarms • Mnemonics did not help improve accuracy of detection. • Even with the high priority alarms sounding more urgent, performance was faster and more accurate for low priority alarms. • Participants with musical training identified alarms far more accurately than those without a background in music. • When involved with other tasks, the nurse’s response to alarms was slower and less accurate