IHPM – DeskActive Research Study Proposal

The Institute for Health and Productivity Management (IHPM) is working in collaboration with DeskActive, Pty. Ltd., and Debra Lerner, PhD, Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts University Medical Center, to conduct field research on: (1) the impact of musculoskeletal pain and related issues on functionality and work performance, using both the Work Limitations Questionnaire (WLQ) developed by Dr. Lerner and a survey tool for collecting data on pain, fatigue and stress; (2) the efficacy of the DeskActive software platform to (a) engage and train employees in healthier practices, (b) reduce the incidence and severity of prevalent office health problems, and (c) demonstrate health and productivity cost savings and benefits that can result.

Common health problems of particular focus include: back/neck pain, chronic pain, fatigue, stress, repetitive strain injuries (RSI) and carpal tunnel syndrome. These problems are so prevalent they represent a major proportion of the health cost burden to employers of desk‐bound staff, yet many can be cost‐effectively preventable.

The IHPM‐DeskActive research partnership is seeking participating employers that are pro‐active about health and safety, and that have:

• Large groups of deskbound employees, especially those using computers or telephones as a major part of their working day.
• Employee populations each having access to a web connected Microsoft Windows PC at their desk.
• Large populations, ideally 500 or more within each organization.

Participants will receive a musculoskeletal health risk assessment, using a musculoskeletal pain measurement tool recently employed in a study at a major global corporation (with expanded segments covering workplace stress and fatigue), and the WLQ to measure lost performance at work, or presenteeism

The DeskActive system itself, via the DeskActive Manager application, is able to generate detailed reports about the following parameters, for individuals, sub‐groups or the entire employee population:

• DeskActive activity breaks completed daily/weekly/monthly, including
  • DeskActive stretches and exercises completed.
  • DeskActive health & safety advice read rates.
• DeskActive compliance rates, i.e. indicators of how well staff are meeting their minimum compliance requirement for reading critical health & safety advice.
• Active computer usage time per day/week/month.
• Key presses and mouse movements per day/week/month.
• DeskActive content preferences – preferred stretch & exercise programs, special focus areas, and advice content.

The data on activity breaks completed will be used to measure staff engagement. Outcomes then can be correlated to users with high or low participation rates.

(Note: the DeskActive intervention system is undergoing review to ensure it is fully compliant with The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy rulings. This will be completed prior to rollouts).

Participating companies will share in publication and presentation of the research results through IHPM’s global conferences and its quarterly magazine Health & Productivity Management, and will be seen as early adopters of the latest technology to improve workplace health, safety and productivity. They also will be entitled to large discounts if they choose to adopt DeskActive as part of their ongoing health services.

Please let me know of your interest in participating, or feel free to contact me with any questions about this research proposal.

With best regards,

Sean Sullivan, JD
President and CEO
Institute for Health and Productivity Management

Intervention Tool – DeskActive

The DeskActive solution leverages connected software technology to deliver a total solution to office health, safety and wellbeing, augmenting face-to-face services, which on their own are typically too expensive to utilize frequently for preventative purposes.

Pause and Stretch Reminder Capabilities

• The highest quality pause & stretch reminder software on the market.
• 3D animated trainers to guide staff through brief at-the-desk stretches & exercises.
• 300+ office-friendly seated and standing stretches & exercises. Plus a constant stream of new content.
• Monitoring keyboard and mouse usage and reminding users to take breaks after excessive computer sessions.
• e.g. DeskActive can pop-up a reminder and say 'John you've typed 100,000 keystrokes without taking more than a 5 minute break, here's a quick 30 second micro-pause (with say 2 seated stretches and 1 health advice entry)'

Remote Management and Reporting

Extensive remote management and reporting capabilities.

Click here for more information.

Audited Health & Safety Content Delivery

Delivers critical health & safety info like ergonomics, manual handling, office safety and fire safety. Information is drawn from various authorized sources, like OSHA and NIOSH. Receipt of information is audited automatically.

Click here for more information.

Study Timeline

The study will run at participant sites for a period of 12 months, as outlined below.

The 12 month period ensures that the intervention (DeskActive) has time to have a measurable impact on measured outcomes, and also allows us to gauge the intervention tool’s ability to engage staff participation over an extended period.

Larger populations may be asked to contribute a control group for measurement to further strengthen outcome validity.

Time	Task	Description
60+ days prior to start	Sign-up	Study organization signs-up officially to be involved.
45+ days prior to start	Preparation	Finalizes selected study population, passes on appropriate internal contacts in IT and health & safety departments.
30+ days prior to start	Setup	Organization passes on lists of participant names and email addresses, for setup of survey tools and DeskActive accounts. DeskActive liaises with IT to ensure IT department are comfortable with rollout procedure. DeskActive liaises with health & safety team to ensure they understand process and any involvement required from them. The health & safety team, in conjunction with a senior management sponsor/champion, pass on an introductory email to all participants explaining the program (draft provided by IHPM-DeskActive)
14+ days prior to start	Tech Rollout	Once IT understand process, they can initiate an automated rollout of the software to all participant PCs in advance of account activations.
14 days prior to start	Internal Research Metrics	Organization requests various internal metrics, as described below in section 'Internal Metrics'.
14 days prior to start	Research Tool 1 (Before)	Complete research tool, in the form of an email with links to the online survey, is sent to all staff, to gather ‘before intervention’ results.
7 days prior	Research Tool 1 - Reminder	Reminder email to chase those who have yet to complete above survey is passed on.
Start	DESKACTIVE INTERVENTION START	Emails are sent to all participants, under the name of the organization’s health & safety department, explaining how to activate their DeskActive account. Will include: their username and password a link to a brief 'Get Started' video or PowerPoint
Start – 6 months	Automated and Monitored DeskActive Intervention	DeskActive automatically encourages engagement with weekly progress messages, appropriate reminder pop-ups. Large variety of content, and various other engagement initiatives (discussed below). DeskActive team monitor messages sent through the system, assist with preventative queries, forward on any treatment or pre-cursor injury cases to organization’s health & safety team.
6 months	Research Tool 2 (During)	Complete research tool, in the form of an email with links to the online survey, is sent to all staff, to gather 'during intervention' results.
6 months + 7 days	Research Tool 2 - Reminder	Reminder email to chase those who have yet to complete above survey is passed on.
6 – 12 months	Automated and Monitored DeskActive Intervention	Same remote management and engagement services as first 6 months.
12 months	Research Tool 3 (Final)	Complete research tool, in the form of an email with links to the online survey, is sent to all staff, to gather ‘after intervention’ results.
12 months + 7 days	Research Tool 3 - Reminder	Reminder email to chase those who have yet to complete above survey is passed on.
Research Close	DESKACTIVE INTERVENTION CLOSE	Email sent to all participants thanking them for their involvement.
Past 12 months	(Optional) Continued Usage	Organizations interested in ongoing usage of DeskActive within part or all of their participation population can roll the research rollout into a standard implementation ongoing. Participant organizations will be entitled to significant discounts.
16 months	Research Results Released	All results released to participant organization health & safety teams.
16+ months	Research Results Published	Research results will be compiled across multiple organizations into a complete report, which will be published among general PR /Media, plus extensively in various IHPM newsletters, announcements and at IHPM international conferences.

Note that study timing need not be coordinated across organizations, but can start on a per-organization basis.

DeskActive System Reports

The DeskActive system itself, via the DeskActive Manager application, is able to generate detailed reports about the following parameters, for individuals, sub-groups or the entire population.

• DeskActive activity breaks completed daily/weekly/monthly, including:
  • DeskActive stretches and exercises completed.
  • DeskActive health & safety advice read rates.
• DeskActive compliance rates, i.e. indicators of how well staff are meeting their minimum compliance requirement for reading critical health & safety advice.
• Active computer usage time per day/week/month.
• Key presses and mouse movements per day/week/month.
• DeskActive content preferences – preferred stretch & exercise programs, special focus areas, and advice content.

The first metrics in green above in particular, will be used as an indication of staff engagement or participation rates. Outcomes can then be correlated to users with high-level or low-level engagement/participation.

User Privacy Protection

All individual information collected as part of the study will be kept strictly confidential, with personal identifiers (like email addresses and names) removed, and replaced by unique IDs. These IDs will be assigned at random, and are only used to correlate the results of the WLQ-IHPM-DeskActive Office Health & Wellbeing Survey component with the DeskActive System Reports component.

This is critically valuable to allow the research to show potential causation between engagement and usage of the DeskActive intervention tool, and improvements in self-measured health and wellbeing.

Note that individual identities will be extracted after correlation for the purpose above, and no individual records will be included in ANY outbound report from the study, including those supplied back to organizations.

The DeskActive intervention system is itself undergoing review to ensure it is fully compliant with The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy rulings. This will be completed prior to rollouts.

Summary

DeskActive is pleased to submit this research project proposal to prospective participant organizations for their consideration.

IHPM and DeskActive look forward to collaborating with high profile organizations to researching and advancing the next generation of health improvement technology - ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of office staff with high ROI solutions.

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