4 ms·

Hospital monitors beeping all the time are so annoying, stressful. Last visit I just turned off the machine I was annoyed.

by sumoboy 10y ago

dingaling 10y ago
Nurses also seem to adapt to filter out the noise which seems practical but means they can also unconsciously ignore alarms or at least require longer to respond. In airliner cockpits this also became a problem when CRTs superceded analogue instruments as the constant drone of their cooling fans masked important aural cues. It has improves with the use of cooler LCDs but even now a 737 cockpit is shockingly noisy. ts
empath75 10y ago
Yeah, my dad was just in the ICU, and you could never tell if he was dying or if the saline bag was just running low. So stressful to be around.
beart 10y ago
The last time I was in the hospital, the sound was only really ever used when the nurse or doctor was present in the room. It allowed them to monitor the status of the patient without having to stare at a display. All other times, the sound was typically turned way down or even muted as they were monitoring an independent readout in another room.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Good units don't just squawk out a beep, they fade in and out and have an inoffensive tone. The pitch changes with increasing/decreasing heart rate. These ones are good and the others need to die.
mhalle 10y ago
The biggest alarm culprits in the hospital are infusion pumps, which are responsible for administering IV medication at the correct rate. An air bubble in the line, a crimp because the patient's arm is bent, or the end of the bag of medication all cause a relentless beeping that usually requires manual intervention. What's more, the beeping happens at the patient's bedside. Of all the actors who are in a clinical hospital environment, it is the patient who is the absolute least empowered to do anything to change the situation, but who is also the most negatively impacted by an alarm. Loss of sleep is a major problem for hospitalized patients[1]. Perhaps nurses respond more to patient beeps/complaints than to the alarms themselves, but it's a bit sadistic if you think about it (though unintentionally). [1] http://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/ns.29.28.35.e8947 http://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/ns.29.28.35.e89...

Hospital monitors beeping all the time are so annoying, stressful. Last visit I just turned off the machine I was annoyed.

by sumoboy 10y ago

Hospital monitors beeping all the time are so annoying, stressful. Last visit I just turned off the machine I was annoyed.

dingaling 10y ago

Nurses also seem to adapt to filter out the noise which seems practical but means they can also unconsciously ignore alarms or at least require longer to respond. In airliner cockpits this also became a problem when CRTs superceded analogue instruments as the constant drone of their cooling fans masked important aural cues. It has improves with the use of cooler LCDs but even now a 737 cockpit is shockingly noisy. ts

empath75 10y ago

Yeah, my dad was just in the ICU, and you could never tell if he was dying or if the saline bag was just running low. So stressful to be around.

beart 10y ago

The last time I was in the hospital, the sound was only really ever used when the nurse or doctor was present in the room. It allowed them to monitor the status of the patient without having to stare at a display. All other times, the sound was typically turned way down or even muted as they were monitoring an independent readout in another room.

lostlogin 10y ago
Good units don't just squawk out a beep, they fade in and out and have an inoffensive tone. The pitch changes with increasing/decreasing heart rate. These ones are good and the others need to die.

mhalle 10y ago

The biggest alarm culprits in the hospital are infusion pumps, which are responsible for administering IV medication at the correct rate. An air bubble in the line, a crimp because the patient's arm is bent, or the end of the bag of medication all cause a relentless beeping that usually requires manual intervention. What's more, the beeping happens at the patient's bedside. Of all the actors who are in a clinical hospital environment, it is the patient who is the absolute least empowered to do anything to change the situation, but who is also the most negatively impacted by an alarm. Loss of sleep is a major problem for hospitalized patients[1]. Perhaps nurses respond more to patient beeps/complaints than to the alarms themselves, but it's a bit sadistic if you think about it (though unintentionally). [1] http://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/ns.29.28.35.e8947 http://journals.rcni.com/doi/pdfplus/10.7748/ns.29.28.35.e89...