The medical world has seen a prevalent rise in the use of temperature scanning devices. These new devices have proven helpful and effective in the current era of medicine that is increasingly hands off to limit patient-provider contact.
Let’s examine how temperature scanning kiosks work and how they are being used in today’s world of telehealth.
How Temperature Scanners Kiosks Work
Temperature scanners pick up the infrared wavelengths that the human body emits and they translate this infrared into a measurable temperature. Temperature scanners in the medical world are handheld devices that read a patient’s body temperature typically from the forehead region. In more sociological and biological applications, temperature scanners are used to read the temperature of a large public place. Both individual and group level temperature scanning is used to monitor unsafe temperatures in humans as a spike in temperature indicates a fever and possible infection.
How Are Temperature Scanners Being Used?
Temperature scanners have been a vital resource in the wake of several notable human health crises including SARS, H1N1 influenza, Ebola, and the recent COVID-19 pandmeic. They are used at entry and exit border crossings and when temperature scanners detect a human body temperature above 100.4°F, the person may be questioned by government health officials to determine exactly where they have been and who they may have infected either knowingly or unknowingly.
Temperature Scanners During COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the use of temperature scanners far exceed regulatory border control. They are now used on a daily basis throughout the world to screen for fevers in almost all areas of normal societal life including schools, work, nursing homes, hospitals and doctors offices, homeless shelters, and even at some businesses and places of worship.
Temperature scanners have become part of the daily routine for many in the world as we continue to battle with COVID-19 and the growing number of variants of the virus. They enable health care workers to determine the severity of a patient’s condition from the onset of the visit and they enable work forces to limit the labor pool to only those workers who are healthy.
Are Temperature Scanners Effective?
There have been numerous studies on the effectiveness of temperature scanners and the results have shown that they are effective, especially given their low-cost and easily accessible nature. Temperature scanners are also effective catalysts for asking those entering and leaving a facility questions as to their whereabouts so if they are infected, tracing can be facilitated.
There was a recent example of the effectiveness of temperature scanners during the COVID-19 pandemic when an employee was prohibited from entering the Cargill meat processing plant in Fort Morgan, CO due to a detected fever. This employee would later test positive for COVID-19 which means countless lives were saved by the temperature scanner detecting his fever.
Temperature scanning kiosks are a cost effective, accessible, and easy to use tool that should be a regular part of your telehealth and access management programs. Contact Let’s Talk Interactive today to learn more about our new Tempscreen technology and how we can help you add temperature scanning kiosks to your facility.