Clinical alarms, which were initiated to draw medical staff's attention when there are changes of a patient's condition, are simultaneously bring out negative influences for patients’ mental and physical health as well as clinicians’ well-being and work efficiency (Cvach, 2012; Drew et al., 2014). Aiming to reach silent patient rooms as well as reduce the alarm fatigue for nurses, an initial idea of using Augmented Reality to visualize alarms
on patient window at night from outside the patient room was proposed. Through the context research and user research, it has been found that the biggest support that ICU nurses need regarding alarms is the information from other rooms when they are inside the patient rooms. Thus, the direction of project shifted from displaying alarm information from outside to inside where the idea is most beneficial for ICU nurses. The findings from expert interviews and nurse interviews lead to a clearer design goal, which is to design
a display system which supports ICU nurses to check real-time alarm information from other patient rooms and respond with touchless interaction through the patient window during night shift. The design goal was divided into three sub-goals: transparent display, touchless interaction and alarm information interface. For each sub-goal, the design went through iterations separately. After an benchmarking research, projection film was chosen to use in the project; by testing with 8 participants, gestures which have the best error
rate were chosen for implementation; by sending out questionnaires to nurses, the alarm interface was iterated and improved based on 11 nurses' response. In the end, three part were integrated and the final design was evaluated by 5 ICU staff (including one technician and 4 nurses) at EMC. With the final design, the nurses are able to get real-time alarm information when they are in another room and remotely deal with the alarm right away. The final design is perceived by the nurses in general as an easy to understand, attractive and practical design. However, there still remain needs from nurses that are not fulfilled and more relevant possible research topics were found out. More possibilities should be researched and tested for development. The recommendations regarding these needs and possibilities are provided at the end of the project.