The perceived urgency of auditory warning alarms used in the hospital operating room is inappropriate.

PURPOSE: To examine the perceived urgency of 13 auditory warning alarms commonly occurring in the hospital operating room.
METHODS: Undergraduate students, who were naïve with respect to the clinical situation associated with the alarms, judged perceived urgency of each alarm on a ten-point scale.
RESULTS: The perceived urgency of the alarms was not consistent with the actual urgency of the clinical situation that triggers it. In addition, those alarms indicating patient condition were generally perceived as less urgent than those alarms indicating the operation of equipment. Of particular interest were three sets of alarms designed by equipment manufacturers to indicate specific priorities for action. Listeners did not perceive any differences in the urgency of the 'information only', 'medium' and 'high' priority alarms of two of the monitors with all judged as low to moderate in urgency. In contrast, the high priority alarm of the third monitor was judged as significantly more urgent than its low and medium urgency counterparts.
CONCLUSION: The alarms currently in use do not convey the intended sense of urgency to naïve listeners, and this holds even for two sets of alarms designed specifically by manufacturers to convey different levels of urgency.