A recent study by the American College of Clinical Engineering found that approximately 80 deaths a year in US hospitals were attributable to issues with medical alarms. I recently stumbled upon the new IEC medical alarms standard (60601-1-8) and was pleased to discover a very clever new system being proposed. Two dimensions of information—function and urgency—are encoded using simple elements of music—harmony, tempo, harmonics, and attack/decay times—in a way that makes decoding them almost natural. The cautionary and low-priority versions of the following melodies are shorter and softer:
| Alarm | High-Priority Melody | Mnemonic |
|---|---|---|
| General | C4-C4-C4-C4-C4 | Fixed pitch |
| Cardiac | C4-E4-G4-G4-C5 | Trumpet call; Call to arms; Major chord |
| Artifical Perfusion | C4-F#4-C4-C4-F#4 | Artificial sound; Tri-tone |
| Ventilation | C4-A4-F4-A4-F4 | Inverted major chord; Rise and fall of the |
| lungs | ||
| Oxygen | C5-B4-A4-G4-F4 | Slowly falling pitches; Top of a major scale; |
| Falling pitch of an | ||
| oximeter | ||
| Temperature | C4-E4-D4-F4-G4 | Slowly rising pitches; Bottom of a major scale; |
| Related to slow | ||
| increase in energy or temperature | ||
| Drug delivery | C5-D4-G4-C5-D4 | Jazz chord (inverted 9th); Drops of an |
| infusion falling and | ||
| “splashing” | ||
| Power failure | C5-C4-C4-C5-C4 | Falling or dropping down |