A novel real time alarm detecting device for the operating room

Among numerous medical devices that generate noise, music is gaining increasing importance in modern operating rooms. Many surgeons perceive music as concentration enhancing during surgery. In safety critical situations instead, e.g. when a medical device emits an alarm, the additional noise exposure induced by music is considered distracting. In this article we present a novel, modular device that turns off music automatically in real time, as soon as a medical device emits an alarm. The device can easily be applied to every common alarm generating medical device and to every music source and pair of speakers, assuming that the player is connected to its speakers via a 3.5 mm audio jack cable. There is no need to modify the respective devices. The device aims at reducing the noise exposure in safety critical situations and thus protecting the patients safety against stress induced mistakes by the operating personnel. Experiments show, that it works faultlessly under common conditions regarding noise exposure in an operating room.