Estimating Physical Work-Load on ED Clinicians and Staff Using Real-Time Location Systems

Clinicians’ work pressure and burnout turned out as an important factor in modern hospitals which urges us to search for rapid and accurate methods to proxy the workload. By using RFID technology, we hope to monitor the physical pressure on the clinical staff of the emergency department (ED) at the Mayo Clinic Saint Mary’s Hospital. The data collected will be used to determine the workload and pressure put on various staff members. A real-time location system (RTLS) has been used to monitor and track the movements of the hospital team and compute active vs. sedentary time for staff. Risk thresholds for the sedentary time from a previous study were utilized to visualize trends in staff sedentary time. Members of the ED team are under great stress at all times; we use RFID technology to get a better understanding of how much their work environment contributes to the pressure of their jobs.