In the future I am hoping to plan a research project involving human factors and ergonomics and nursing care delivery. One of the tools I hope to use is the device known as The Bodymedia Fit Armband. This device is worn 24 hours a day on one’s upper arm. It collects data
by using an accelerometer to count steps, skin temperature and galvanic skin response to measure body heat and activity, and heat flux to measure the heat your body gives off to the environment (Bodymedia, 2008)….Read more…
This is the kind of report that comes from the device when it is connected to a computer via a USB port. It would be fascinating to analyze this data of calories burned, consumed, sleep, steps, activity level in terms of errors. I would envision a study where nurses wore these for 6 months while data was collected on the physical state of the staff when errors are made or even during times of peak performance when lives are saved.
Here is an example of some detail from a day of one of my 12 hour shifts: *I did not enter calories consumed but that may prove to be of interest also..this is the only value that has to be entered manually.
Steps are actually broken down by hour. When compared with several staff and days of the week, busy times of the day could be identified for workload management.
The band is not too intrusive and the face can be customized in any design. This image is about double the actual size.
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