Alarm fatigue or alert fatigue describes how busy workers become desensitized to safety alerts, and as a result ignore or fail to respond appropriately to such warnings. Alarm fatigue occurs in many fields, including construction and mining, healthcare, and the nuclear power field. Like crying wolf, such false alarms rob the critical alarms of the importance they deserve. Alarm management and policy are critical to prevent alarm fatigue.
Examples
- Vehicle back-up alarms sound so frequently that they often become senseless background noise
- Electronic medical monitors tracking clinical information such as vital signs and blood glucose sound alarms so frequently, and often for such minor reasons, that they lose the urgency and attention-grabbing power which they are intended to have
- California Proposition 65 has been criticized for causing "over-warning" due to encouraging "meaningless warnings." There is no penalty for posting an unnecessary warning sign, and to the extent that warnings are vague or overused, they may not communicate much information to the end user. Many companies now routinely attach Prop 65 warning labels to any product of theirs that they think might possibly contain one of the 900 listed chemicals without testing to see whether the chemical is really present in their product and without reformulating their product, because it is cheaper to do so than to run the risk of being sued by Prop 65 enforcers.
Proposed solutions
- Identify by sound alone. Change alarm sounds to be softer and friendlier in order to improve identification of alarms.
- Adjust the parameters and delays to alarms to match the traits and status. However, this directly trades sensitivity for specificity.
- Centrally monitor alarms where a trained person evaluates each alarm and distributes alerts only when necessary.
- Adjust automated alarm algorithms to be more specific and not overly sensitive to mitigate false alarms and balance sensitivity and specificity to still detect actionable conditions.
See also
- Alarm management – Usability factor in alarm systems
- Banner blindness – Tendency to ignore banner-size notices
- Compassion fatigue – Condition characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion
- False alarm – Deceptive or erroneous report of an emergency
- Habituation – Decrease in a behavioral response to a repeated stimulus
- Inattentional blindness – Condition of failing to see something in plain view
- Information overload – Decision making with too much information
- Normalization of deviance – Sociological phenomenon
- Semantic satiation – Psychological phenomenon
No comments:
Post a Comment