CareCam: An Intelligent, Camera-Based Health Companion at the Workplace

Health assistant tools at the workplace may contribute to preventing work-related absenteeism, increasing overall employee satisfaction, and reducing the costs of sickness or presenteeism in the long term. The tools may be integrated into a digital corporate health management strategy. Despite their huge potential, a major drawback of common tools (e.g., wearables, dedicated cameras) are that they require direct interaction, skin contact, or come with a high acquisition cost. A concept for unobtrusive and software-based monitoring to increase long-term health, improve working conditions or show the necessary adjustments to the new work situation can help to solve these problems. This paper presents a concept that shows how a simple webcam can be utilized to record vital signs, posture, and behavior during working hours. It offers individual and intelligent interventions and recommendations based on these data to reduce psychological and physical stress. Our approach demonstrates that the required parameters can be used to offer user-tailored interventions based on simple rules. We present a prototypical implementation of an intelligent health companion and show avenues for future research.