System for Flexible Field Measurement of Physiological Data of Operators Working in Automated Labs

Abstract

The strain of manual, automated, and semi-automated tasks in high-throughput chemical screening procedures offer new challenges for occupational and preventive medicine. Therefore, field inquiries need to measure several physiological parameters to determine amounts of strain. These include blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing parameters. These parameters can be registered by specialized mobile devices and sensor systems, but before they can be evaluated, it is essential to understand the activity patterns that represent the workloads. Activity status is gathered by those being tested with the help of a Nokia 3660 cell phone. A self-developed software module runs on the mobile phone and allows users to enter an activity setting and any subjective conditions via a short questionnaire. All data are stored together with a time stamp. After finishing an experiment (i.e., completing a working day), the collected data are transmitted to a central data server. Activity data and physiological data are stored in a central database in a merged data set. Access is provided via an Intranet or Internet connection. A graphical visualization tool, which can be shared from any location via Internet, helps to analyze the experimental data. Occupational medicine field studies in the working environment of chemical laboratories benefit from the data acquisition system and especially from the semiautomated self-monitoring.