This week, our main deliverable was completing CITI training, a series of lessons detailing proper behavior and protocols in a hospital environment. The CITI training course was called ‘Social and Behavioral Responsible Conduct of Research’. This course specifically covered such topics as ethical principles, federal regulations, informed consent, and privacy and confidentiality. We are in contact with the necessary hospital administrators to schedule our shadowing hours. Our shadowing experience will allow us to assess the number of movements that both babies and physicians make over the course of a typical day.
Aside from CITI training, the team has discussed potential layouts for implementation of sensors in the hospital. During the first visit to the NICU, the team was given a layout of the floorplan of several of the pods. These pods are decentralized; therefore, the sensors need to be placed in such a way that a baby leaving the pod will be sensed both as it leaves the pod and enters a new pod. Ultimately, our hope is to place these sensors and analyze the data collected to begin compiling a Systems Requirement Document for Synapse and NICU.
Our next deliverable will be to thoroughly define our data collection methods during our observations. We will need to identify what variables will be most beneficial to developing a solution. For example, we may need to track the movement of a select subset of babies, or perhaps observe the movement of any babies in and out of one pod, etc. Additionally, we will determine the best way to collect and present this data in a format conducive to forming a solution.