Remote Monitoring of a Work-From-Home Employee to Identify Stress: A Case Report

How do you assess the mental wellness of your work-from-home employees? This case study reports on how an occupational health nurse used work-from-home employee's own phone and Fitbit™ smartwatch to obtain heart rate data to screen for high periods of stress. Telemedicine and telemetry allowed the occupational health nurses to screen an employee when the nurse could not assess the employee face-to-face. When the occupational health nurses identified an at-risk employee, the occupational health nurses referred the employee to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for counseling. Leveraging heart rate data on a smartwatch is a free intervention that is scalable and has a demonstrated outcome measure with a positive return on investment.