FCLabs - Using wearable technology to improve awareness and take-up of OHS

FCLabs are a wearable neurotech company, developing a worker wellbeing solution (CoreTech), which tracks and predicts fluctuations in cognitive performance and risk of human error, delivering simple, actionable insights in the form of a CoreScore. CoreTech is like a Fitbit for the brain. Our wearable device measures blood flow and oxygenation/deoxygenation (haemodynamic response) in the pre-frontal cortex area of the brain, which our algorithms then combine with heart rate, heart rate variability and motion data to create what we call a 'CoreScore'.

Your CoreScore is an indicator of both fluctuating cognitive performance and an early warning of potential underlying causes, some of which are amongst the most pressing OH concerns today - mental & physical fatigue, lack of sleep, stress & anxiety, drug & alcohol use, dehydration, nutrition, blood sugar levels (diabetes), cold/heat stress, boredom, distraction, illness and poor air quality/toxic gases.

We don't attempt to automatically diagnose underlying causes (yet; it is on our roadmap), but provide quantifiable, simple, actionable insights into fluctuations in risk to the individual and/or a supervisor. This awareness supports decisions on appropriate action, intervention or mitigation and encourages long-term behavioural change.

Our target audience with CoreTech are large organisations in high-risk sectors; primarily construction, engineering and oil & gas.

In developing CoreTech we have identified that it is possible to derive a CoreScore from heart rate, heart rate variability and motion alone. It's not as accurate at tracking and predicting cognitive performance as using the CoreTech device, but we believe still provides a valuable indicator of both risk of error and the potential underlying causes.

This gives us the ability to use a smartwatch or activity tracker as the source of data, which many workers already have and are used to wearing. We believe this presents an opportunity to develop a simple, accessible, low-cost new product for self-employed, micro and small-medium enterprises, where actionable data delivered to the individual and (where appropriate) to a supervisor, employer or OHS provider will:

* prompt awareness/self-awareness of potential issues * encouraging behavioural change and supporting self-management, reducing the need for OHS intervention; * enabling efficient & effective signposting to appropriate support; * improving uptake of that support;

* allow employers and OHS providers to identify areas of need, improve targeting and take-up of services and measure impact.

This project involves the development and trial of a proof of concept mobile app for individual users, assessing the feasibility of the solution.