Examining the Efficacy of Vibrotactile Displays for Monitoring Patient Vital Signs: Six Laboratory Studies of Change Detection and State Identification

Healthcare workers often monitor patients while moving between different locations and tasks, and away from conventional monitoring displays. Vibrotactile displays can provide patient information in vibrotactile patterns that are felt regardless of the worker's location. We examined how effectively participants could identify changes in vibrotactile representations of patient heart rate (HR) and oxygen saturation (SpO2). In Experiment 1, participants identified changes in HR and SpO2 with greater than 90% accuracy while using vibrotactile displays configured in either an integrated or a separated format. In Experiment 2, incidental auditory and visual cues were removed and performance was still greater than 90% for the integrated display. In Experiments 3 and 4, ongoing tasks with low or high task load were introduced; high load worsened participants' response accuracy and speed at identifying vital signs. In Experiments 5 and 6, alternative designs were tested, including a design with a seemingly more natural mapping of HR to vibrotactile stimulation. However, no design supported more accurate performance than the integrated display. Results are interpreted with respect to multiple resource theory, and constraints on conforming to design guidelines are noted. Vibrotactile displays appear to be viable and therefore potentially suitable for use in healthcare and other contexts. Public Significance Statement Given the amount of visual and auditory information that clinicians receive, the tactile sense could be used to keep clinicians aware of their patients' well-being. This article reports six preclinical studies that explore several possible displays for conveying pulse oximetry (heart rate and oxygen saturation) information in vibrotactile form to users, and it tests the vibrotactile displays under different levels of workload and event frequency.