SleepSync: Organisational feasibility and acceptability of a digital sleep health intervention for shift-working nurses

Opportunity

Poor and inadequate sleep is estimated to cost $66 billion to the Australian economy in lost productivity, wellbeing and health. Shift work is one of the key contributing factors to poor sleep and more than 16% of the Australian workforce is employed in shift work.

The SleepSync app is a patented personalised sleep-wake management App, co-designed with shift workers to deliver biologically driven recommendations to improve sleep and alertness. SleepSync delivers recommendations for sleep and light exposure timing, taking individuals’ rosters, personal commitments, and daily commute times into account. In addition, SleepSync offers educational resources on managing shift work, including sleep and light timing, napping, circadian rhythms, light exposure, caffeine use, and healthy sleep practices.

This project will run a pilot at Monash Health and Austin Health to assess feasibility and implementation of SleepSync. Findings will provide the foundational data to support adoption of SleepSync across diverse clinical settings to support essential shift workers employed in the healthcare sector.

Project Objectives

• Examine the feasibility, acceptability, and impacts of SleepSync implementation in for shift workers in the healthcare sector.
• Examine the impacts of SleepSync on individual health outcomes, such as insomnia, sleep quality, fatigue and mental health.
• Build postdoctoral capacity through mentoring, applied research and cross-sector collaboration.
• Identify strategies for wider dissemination of outcomes to stakeholders, DHCRC partners and the broader digital health community.