Technology fatigue, cognitive load, and clinician well-being in modern anesthesia practice

Medical devices like physiologic monitors, anesthesia machines, and ventilators, are designed by biomedical engineers but used by clinicians. Advanced medical technology can be incorporated into clinical practice safely, but addressing alarm fatigue, resilience, automation complacency, and clinician wellbeing will help to maintain and improve patient safety.

The operating room is designed for efficient patient care but consideration is rarely given to the safety and well-being of clinicians. An increasing frequency of medical alarms is associated with greater rates of alarm fatigue and burnout. This extends to clinical alerts generated by electronic health records. The usability of a clinical decision support system also affects physicians' willingness to act on alerts. Automation complacency occurs when a clinician allows a system to act without considering its limitations or the possibility of a malfunction. Each of these factors may cause a problem to go unnoticed, leading to delays in diagnosis or treatment. Solutions include clinician training and consideration of ergonomics and human factors early in the design process.

A better understanding of human factors and ergonomics in anesthesia can improve usability and reliability of new technology, thus improving patient safety. These interventions present opportunities for potential research.