Case Study

Medical Monitoring Devices

Based on work done at

Hewlett-Packard
Patient Monitoring Division
Circa 1993

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 Introduction
• HP Patient Monitoring Division (PMD),
Andover MA, 1992 – 1995
• Division developed various devices for use
in hospitals (ICU, CCU) to help improve
patient outcomes
• HP Medical later spun to Agilent, then sold
to Philips

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 Project “Griffin”
• Develop a “next generation central station”, a
monitoring device that resides at the nurse’s
desk and displays data from individual bedside
monitors

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 Usability Measures
• Time to learn: minimal, but training time
acceptable
• Speed of performance: fast, must be easy
to locate critical data
• Rate of errors: very low
• Retention over time: high
• Subjective satisfaction: not required, but
good enough to maintain level of alertness
over long periods of time
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 System Users
• Users are entirely clinicians:
– Doctors, nurses
– Highly trained professionals, high degree of
area knowledge
– Not necessarily computer savvy
– Have critical tasks to perform, system plays
an assistive role

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 Interaction Styles
• For this system, the environment drop the
style as much as the users:
– Minimal desk space, smaller footprint of
trackball as pointing device
– Potentially noisy / chaotic
– Required high degree of accuracy

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 Interaction Styles
• Direct manipulation: usable for selecting
targets and issuing commands (buttons)
• Menu selection: short learning curve,
reduced keystrokes, error handling
• Forms: slow, too high a risk of errors
• Command language: too much training,
lots of error handling
• Natural language: far too many
keystrokes
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 Monitoring Tasks
• Real world object
– Patients
– Vital signs
• Actions applied to objects
– Display vital signs
– Raise alarms if vitals go outside acceptable
ranges
– Set ranges

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 Interface Objects
• Patient
– Name
– Vital signs
• Vital signs
– Name (heart rate, blood pressure)
– Value (beats per minute)
– Acceptable range of value

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 Interface Representations
• Heart rate
– Display metaphor: waveform
• Long history in the medical community
– Display color
– Alarm levels
– Alarm colors
– Alarm sounds

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 Interface Actions
• Display vital signs
• Set acceptable ranges
• Inform users of alarms (visual, audio)
• Silence alarms

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 Final Interface

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