How ICU Patient Severity Affects Communicative Interactions Between Healthcare Professionals: A Study Utilizing Wearable Sociometric Badges

Numerous factors affecting the interactions between healthcare professionals in the workplace demand a comprehensive understanding if the quality of patient healthcare is to be improved. Our previous cross-sectional analysis showed that patient severity scores [i.e., Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II] in the 24 h following admission positively correlated with the length of the face-to-face interactions among ICU healthcare professionals. The present study aims to address how the relationships between patient severity and interaction lengths can change over a period of time during both admission and treatment in the ICU. We retrospectively analyzed data prospectively collected between 19 February to 17 March 2016 from an open ICU in a University Hospital in Japan. We used wearable sensors to collect a spatiotemporal distribution dataset documenting the face-to-face interactions between ICU healthcare professionals, which involved 76 ICU staff members, each of whom worked for 160 h, on average, during the 4-week period of data collection. We studied the longitudinal relationships among these interactions, which occurred at the patient bedside, vis-à-vis the severity of the patient's condition [i.e., the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score] assessed every 24 h. On Day 1, during which a total of 117 patients stayed in the ICU, we found statistically significant positive associations between the interaction lengths and their SOFA scores, as shown by the Spearman's correlation coefficient value (R) of 0.447 (p < 0.01). During the course of our observation from Day 1 to Day 10, the number of patients (N) who stayed in the ICU gradually decreased (N = 117, Day1; N = 10, Day 10), as they either were discharged or died. The statistically significant positive associations of the interaction lengths with the SOFA scores disappeared from Days 2 to 6, but re-emerged on Day 7 (R = 0.620, p < 0.05) and Day 8 (R = 0.625, p < 0.05), then disappearing again on Days 9 and 10. Whereas all 6 SOFA sub-scores correlated well with the interaction lengths on Day 1, only a few of the sub-scores (coagulation, cardiovascular, and central nervous system scores) did so; specifically, those on Days 7 and 8. The results suggest that patient severity may play an important role in affecting the interactions between ICU healthcare professionals in a time-related manner on ICU Day 1 and on Days 7/8.