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Anesth Analg 2008; 106:1182-1188
© 2008 International Anesthesia Research Society
doi: 10.1213/ane.0b013e318163f7c2
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TECHNOLOGY, COMPUTING, AND SIMULATION

A Novel Vibrotactile Display to Improve the Performance of Anesthesiologists in a Simulated Critical Incident

Simon Ford, MB ChB, FRCA*, Jeremy Daniels, BASc, EIT*, Joanne Lim, MASc*, Valentyna Koval, MD{dagger}, Guy Dumont, PhD, P.Eng{ddagger}, Stephan K. W. Schwarz, MD, PhD, FRCPC*, and J. Mark Ansermino, MBBCh, MSc(Inf), FFA*

From the *Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics and {dagger}Centre of Excellence for Surgical Education and Innovation, Vancouver General Hospital, and {ddagger}Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Simon Ford, Department of Anesthesia, British Columbia Children’s Hospital. 4480 Oak St., Vancouver, BC, V6H 3V4, Canada. Address e-mail to smford1{at}gmail.com.

BACKGROUND: Current methods of information transfer in the operating room between monitor and anesthesiologist rely on visual and auditory modalities. These modalities can easily become overloaded in a high cognitive workload situation, such as in a critical incident. The use of vibrotactile communication has been shown to improve information transfer in other high cognitive workload environments such as aviation. We designed a novel waist-mounted vibrotactile display to be worn by the anesthesiologist to test if a vibrotactile display could improve the clinical response time to begin treating a simulated case of anaphylaxis when compared with a group using traditional information displays. In addition, we evaluated differences in situational awareness (SA) between the two groups.

METHODS: Twenty-four volunteer anesthesiologists were randomized to diagnose and treat a simulated case of anaphylaxis using the vibrotactile display and standard monitoring (vibrotactile display group) or standard monitoring alone (control group). The time taken to administer epinephrine was measured, and objective post hoc analysis of participant SA was performed.

RESULTS: Participants in the vibrotactile group took 4.08 min (95% CI = 1.22) to deliver definitive treatment compared with 7.21 min (95% CI = 2.07) for the control group (P < 0.05). Despite the reduced time to treatment, no improvement in SA was measured.

CONCLUSION: Our study provides evidence that vibrotactile communication can reduce response time to critical incidents.






Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins Anesthesia & Analgesia® is published for the International Anesthesia Research Society® by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins with the assistance of Stanford University Libraries' HighWire Press®. Copyright 2006 by the International Anesthesia Research Society. Online ISSN: 1526-7598   Print ISSN: 0003-2999 HighWire Press
Copyright © 2008 by the International Anesthesia Research Society.