2002

Intelligent Communication Uniforms (ICU) for health care workers

Intelligent Communication Uniforms (ICU) for health care workers.

Molly van der Weij, Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine Neel Dam

Abstract

E-wear and Health Care: Integration of information and communication technology into designs of working uniforms for health care workers.

Introduction In 2000 the Future Telemedicine Laboratory at the Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine introduced the concept of "Cybernina": the Future Health Care Worker. This concept is the umbrella for various projects concerning the use of mobile and wearable computing by nurses. Nurses use a wide variety of information, e.g., about patients' conditions, medication, treatments, and administration, and often need to communicate interactively. Considering the fact that nurses need to have their hands free, wearable computing might be a practical solution of integrating information acquisition and communication into the everyday work routines. As nurses have more specialized tasks and responsibilities , new devices need to be developed that give the health care worker immediate access to detailed and sometimes complicated information at the workplace and when in action. The ICU concept aims to provide solutions in the form of integrating communication technology into the working uniform.

Objective The ICU project aims at investigating the feasibility of applying wearable computing in health care work.

Product Workshops, interviews and literature were used to describe and specify user groups within nursing and health care work and to map the specific tasks and needs within each group. On the basis of this information a collection of uniforms was designed in which information and communication equipment is integrated. Each uniform is specially designed for the target group in question.

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