It has become increasingly important to control the spread of coronavirus through monitoring key symptoms, such as a fever.
And to reduce the risk to keyworkers from doing this manually, Oprema and its partner, Dahua Technology, have been supplying thermal imaging solutions to a number of NHS facilities, enabling automatic detection of a person’s temperature in less than a second without the need for personal contact, providing hospitals with an accurate primary screening solution.
The process currently used by many hospitals involves frontline keyworkers using a hand-held infrared thermometer to measure people’s temperatures as they enter a facility.
But, for this to work, the individual conducting the temperature monitoring has to get very close to the potentially-infected person, increasing the risk of the virus being transmitted.
These manual checks are also very time-consuming in an environment where no-one wants to wait longer than necessary.
The Dahua Thermal Solution has an accuracy of ±0.3℃ and removes the need for handheld thermometers, reducing the risk to staff and speeding up the staff and patient entry process.
By combining the latest CCTV and thermal temperature measurement technology, the solution is capable of automatically detecting if a person has a higher-than-normal body temperature, and can screen individuals or larger groups simultaneously.
The Dahua Thermal Solution will be a huge help to our team in screening patients quickly and effectively, without putting those doing the measuring at unnecessary risk of infection themselves
As a comparison, using a handheld forehead thermometer to measure the temperatures of 5,000 people would take over four hours.
With the Dahua Thermal Solution – which is capable of measuring three people per second – 5,000 people takes just 30 minutes.
And, should someone enter a facility with this solution with a high temperature, an alarm sounds as an indication they are potentially carrying a virus and should be checked by a medical professional.
The Dahua Thermal Solution has already been installed at University Hospital Llandough.
Chris Wilson, consultant orthopaedic surgeon for trauma and orthopaedics at the hospital, said: “We need to keep our clinic going during the current crisis, now for trauma patients and also later on for patients suffering with pain and disability waiting for urgent assessment.
“The Dahua Thermal Solution will be a huge help to our team in screening patients quickly and effectively, without putting those doing the measuring at unnecessary risk of infection themselves.”
Matthew Epps, managing director at Oprema, adds: “The temperature monitoring solution in use at University Hospital Llandough has also been implemented in other environments requiring the screening of a high volume of people since the beginning of the pandemic, including airports and the NHS Nightingale Hospital London, reducing the risk to frontline key workers and freeing up time for them to perform other critical functions.”
Installation of this rapidly-deployable solution requires very-little disruption to general operations and it can be up and running in as little as 24 hours from point of order.
