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Original research
Improving communications in PPE: a solution for ‘landline’ telephone communication
  1. Timothy J Coats1,
  2. Edward Pallett2,
  3. Jasdip Mangat2,
  4. Emma Chung3
  1. 1 Emergency Medicine, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  2. 2 Clinical Engineering, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, UK
  3. 3 Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester Medical Physics, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, UK
  1. Correspondence to Professor Timothy J Coats, Emergency Medicine, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK; tc61{at}le.ac.uk

Abstract

Background Emergency care staff wearing elastomeric respiratory personal protective equipment (PPE) report difficulties in communicating by telephone. We developed and tested an affordable technological solution aimed at improving telephone call intelligibility for staff wearing PPE.

Methods A novel headset was created to enable a throat microphone and bone conduction headset to be used in combination with a standard hospital ‘emergency alert’ telephone system. Speech intelligibility of an ED staff member wearing PPE was compared between the proposed headset and current practice by simultaneously recording a version of the Modified Rhyme Test and a Key Sentences Test. Recordings were played back to a group of blinded ED staff listening to pairs of recordings under identical conditions. The proportion of correctly identified words was compared using a paired t-test.

Results Fifteen ED staff correctly identified a mean of 73% (SD 9%) words for speech communicated via the throat microphone system, compared with only 43% (SD 11%) of words for standard practice (paired t-test, p<0.001).

Conclusions Introduction of a suitable headset could significantly improve speech intelligibility during ‘emergency alert’ telephone calls.

  • communication
  • communications

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article.

https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2023-213276

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    Data availability statement

    All data relevant to the study are included in the article.

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @TJCoats

    • Contributors TJC led the work and was involved in the concept, design, data acquisition, analysis, drafting of the paper and final approval of the version to be published, and is the guarantor of this paper. EP contributed to the design, build of the communications device, technical aspects of data acquisition, reviewing of the paper and approval of the final version. JM contributed to the design of the work, the data analysis, reviewing the paper and approval of the final version. EC contributed to the overall concept, the data acquisition, the data analysis, reviewing of the paper and approval of the final version.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.