Developing an innovative health monitoring device to improve communication between passengers and cabin attendants during Inflight Emergencies

Abstract

Introduction Medical emergencies occurring onboard commercial flights are exceedingly rare, however if it happens, they put cabin-, flight crew and fellow passengers under enormous stress levels. The use of a Health Monitoring System could aid the cabin crew in early detecting critical health conditions. Additionally, for passengers there is no possibility to discreetly inform the crew about emergencies since there is only a Passenger Call Button available. Research Question This paper analyses passengers´ user acceptance of the Health Monitoring System as well as the Emergency Button. Method Participants needed to complete an online survey and were presented prototypes of the Health Monitoring System as well as the Emergency Button. User acceptance was measured using the Van der Laan scale. A total of 41 participants contributed to the study. Result The user ratings for the Onboard Health Monitoring System were low mainly due to privacy concerns of the passengers. Since only one use case for the Emergency Button has been presented to the participants of the study, the user acceptance ratings were also low. Discussion Passengers were reluctant to share sensitive data. However, the majority (over 70%, n≥ 11, effective sample size=16)) agreed to have the most important vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, oxygen saturation measured. Conclusion To increase user acceptance of the Health Monitoring System it is important for the passengers to ensure that sensitive data is handled and stored carefully. Additional detailed usability assessments would be necessary for both devices to draw further conclusions about system design.