Employee Safety with IoT Thermometers

Many companies are looking at innovative ways to provide safe environments for their employees. A Portland company, Indow, have replaced door knobs with hooks at their factory where employees now use their elbows instead of their hands to open doors. They have also modified their restrooms so employees don’t have to flush toilets with their hands and instead can use their forearms. With factories needing to stay open, these types of changes help ensure business continuity in a new way and provide opportunities for companies to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission.  

When considering how to reopen businesses, a more gradual return, for example, could provide employers with time to require employees to take a screening test before they come back into the office and potentially create a risk for others. But what about employers who are looking at ways to screen and prevent the spread of the virus during working hours. Beyond providing sanitizers, cleaning supplies and pre-work health assessments, we are noticing many companies are considering monitoring their employees’ health through on-site screening, such as taking temperatures.

We are currently working with a client who is exploring options around just this. Instead of taking a temperature either through a non-contact infrared thermometer or even an oral thermometer, they are considering non-invasive thermal temperature measurement as one type of screening to quickly identify employees who may be infected with COVID-19. An employee would wear a small device, like a bandaid on their skin, continuously throughout their shift where core temperature is measured in real-time. This allows employers to track core body temperature fluctuations and determine when there is a significant temperature change during the employees shift. Employers are provided immediate awareness of a temperature change where they can assess whether the employee has a fever and determine next steps based on the company’s policies.

N³ Innovation’s mission is to help corporate clients create measurable enterprise value by inventing the future. Clients have generated millions of dollars of revenue in new markets, with new products and new technologies.  

Want to learn more about how to quickly innovate your business models to ensure business continuity in times of change, Contact Us Today!