LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A West Metro fire captain is turning to technology to try and figure out ways to get firefighters more sleep.
Captain Mike Binney is in a graduate program at Yale University and is focusing his research on sleep deprivation within the fire service.
“The sleep habits are not great because you grab sleep wherever you can,” Binney said. “I think it’s commonplace to have hot coffee in the fire station 24/7 for that reason.”
Binney says it’s common to be woken up multiple times every night for various medical or fire-related emergencies across the district.
Binney says the true impact hasn’t received much attention and believes this is the first time a study like this has taken place.
A group of 197 firefighters are now wearing smartwatches that track their sleep cycles, monitoring when they’re awake and for how long. The goal is to overlay this data with 911 call data to see if certain calls and awake times have a greater impact on sleep performance.
“The whole point of this project is to look at that information so we can build policy to improve these situations and improve the overall health and wellness of the firefighters,” Binney said.
In a pilot study completed last year, Binney says they saw a 30% difference in restorative sleep for firefighters who were at work versus sleeping at home.
Eventually, the captain hopes to see if the data can result in changes fire departments can make nationwide to improve sleep performance.
“I always say once the toothpaste is out of the tube, we have to do something with it,” he said. “I think this is going to be the opportunity that kind of springboards the fire service into the data world.”
Binney says he’s teaming up with the Colorado Office of eHealth Innovation, the International Association of Firefighters, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control and the Colorado Professional Firefighters Association for funding and help with the project.