Contact Observations from an Intensive Care Unit.

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.