Checkmates, helping nurses plan ahead in the neonatal intensive care unit

Workflow in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is relatively unpredictable, which makes it difficult to plan activities. Simple tasks, such as checking device statuses may be forgotten, resulting in disturbing alarms. In this paper, we will present CheckMates, ambient lighting displays, which visualize device statuses to provide nurses with more overview. We performed expert reviews to obtain insights into the different potentials of CheckMates. Additionally, we performed a simulation study to gather user experiences regarding the functioning of CheckMates and their capacity to improve planning in an NICU environment. The results showed a variety of potential benefits for increasing nurses’ overview of device statuses and their opportunities for workflow planning. Furthermore, CheckMates did not appear to be distracting.