Novel visualisation approach for Intensive Care Unit Clinical Activity monitoring

Nursing activity can significantly influence patient outcome in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The ability to track a patient bedside nursing activity and to analyse the interactions between the nurses' and patient can provide clinically useful information to optimize the distribution of clinical resources, improving patient care and better manage the ICU nurse workload. In this paper, 4 potential methods that can be used to quantify the nursing activity are presented and evaluated. The corresponding advantages and disadvantages of each method are evaluated in a weighted scoring system. The highest scored method is then further developed for the application. This system, the Clinical Activity Tracking System (CATS) utilizes an infrared depth sensor to automatically quantify nursing activity at patient's bedside. This new system is tested in a simulated environment and the preliminary results on its accuracy and robustness are presented.