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Updated: Sep 19, 2025
Observational Study Protocol for Repeated Clinical Examination and Critical Care Ultrasonography Within the Simple Intensive Care Studies
Published on: January 16, 2019
Contact Observations from an Intensive Care Unit
Hieu Vu1, Roger Struble2, Philip M Polgreen2
1Department of Computer Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, US.
Abstract:
Location and interaction data for workers in a hospital unit are useful for epidemiological research. This article describes a one-week study measuring contacts between healthcare professionals in a medical intensive care unit. Measurements capture the duration of contact, defined as being within six feet (1.8 ± 0.1 meters) distance between instrumented persons or between persons and selected locations throughout the unit. Within each patient room, measurements distinguish between three places: the sink, the computer, and the vitals monitor. Data from the study, approximately 15 million records, are processed into different formats that facilitate analysis.
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