That’s a great step in keeping everyone safe, but not all temperature scanners are produced or used in an effective way. In fact, you might have heard of the FDA’s recent crackdown on COVID temperature scanning technology.

This doesn’t mean that high-tech or contact-free scanners are all inaccurate. So what’s the problem and how is the FDA aiming to fix it?

Why the FDA Is Concerned

A popular way to scan for a fever is to use a standalone kiosk that scans each person as they enter your facility. While these are widely accurate, the problem is that some of these manufacturers are claiming that their products have special algorithms that let them scan multiple people at a time.

The reality is that no scanner can accurately read each person’s temperature. In practice, those “algorithms” resulted in many people’s temperatures being off by several degrees. That can make the difference between a safe, healthy temperature and a fever leading to a massive outbreak.

As a result, the FDA has begun sending warning letters to these manufacturers about their inaccurate marketing and instructions.

Should You Be Worried About Your Temperature Screenings?

If you’re a business using a temperature scanner to screen for fevers among your employees and patrons, should you be concerned about getting a letter from the FDA?

The FDA’s jurisdiction focuses more on the way health-related products are manufactured and marketed. For this reason, only the manufacturers of these products appear to be facing repercussions so far.

However, if you’re using a temperature screener to check multiple people at one time, you do have a reason to be concerned. You could be in violation of your state or local government if they have regulations requiring temperature screenings. Even without any regulations, you’re putting your facility at risk for a costly outbreak.

How to Make Sure Your Temperature Screenings are Accurate

As a business that wants to keep everyone safe, what can you do to avoid the problems the FDA has discovered? There are several ways to make sure your temperature screenings are reliable.

Choose Honest, Accurate Screening Technology

Start by using a technology that hasn’t been issued a warning about the current scandal and one that doesn’t claim to be able to screen multiple people at once. No technology can do this accurately, so if a manufacturer is making that claim, it calls their honesty into question.

Instead, opt for a product like the spinTouch RapidScreen that scans people properly, one at a time, and has a track record of reliability.

Scan Each Person Individually

No matter what your scanning technology claims or how much you’d like to speed up the line of people in front of you, always scan each person individually. The risks of allowing someone to potentially spread COVID-19 or other serious illnesses throughout your business are too great to attempt a shortcut.

Choosing spinTouch RapidScreen for Accurate Temperature Readings

Using a temperature scanning kiosk properly is one of the simplest ways to protect your business and your patrols from COVID-19. To learn how we can help, learn more about the reliable spinTouch RapidScreen temperature scanner.

The post What the FDA’s Recent Crackdown on COVID Scanning Technology Really Means first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

As convenient as this technology is, it has also led some users to wonder about their security. They’ve heard the terms “biometrics” and “facial recognition,” but what do those terms mean exactly? And do they put their security at risk?

What Are Biometrics?

Biometrics is a broad category. It describes any method of using data points from your body to either verify your identity or verify your credentials. For example, biometrics includes fingerprint reading, voice recognition, and even the high-tech retina scanners you’ve seen in spy movies.

While they seem like innovative practices, biometrics have been part of our daily lives for far longer than most people realize. For example, logging into your phone or tablet with your fingerprint has been around so long that it’s practically outdated, and some voice assistants use voice recognition to obey your own commands rather than getting confused by everyone who asks a question on a TV show you’re watching.

What Is Facial Recognition?

Facial recognition is actually one type of biometric as well. In the same way that fingerprint readers check whether you have the same data points in your fingerprint as the person who’s logging in, facial recognition looks for facial data similarities for the same purpose. Like other biometrics, facial recognition is a common part of our daily lives today, like logging into your phone or authorizing an Apple Pay purchase with FaceID.

How does Facial Recognition Work?

Many people are worried about facial recognition technology simply because they don’t recognize how it works. The technology doesn’t store a photo of you and check to see if your face matches every time you try to gain access.

In reality, when you set up the facial recognition, it analyzes the landmarks and measurements of your face. For example, it could measure the distance between your eyes, the depth of your eye sockets, the size of your cheekbones, the length of your jawline, the width of your nose, and more. Depending on the precision of the technology, it could map as many as 80 different data points using your photo or scanned image.

After measuring those data points, the software turns this data into a numerical code, that that code is what it stores – not your actual image. No one would be able to look at this code and say, “Okay, now I know what this person looks like.”

Facial recognition is nothing to be worried about, and it surrounds us on a daily basis. Any time you walk into a big box store like Walmart or a mall, you can expect that their cameras are running with facial recognition somewhere. This way, if someone robs the store or assaults you in the store, for example, they can potentially identify the criminal.

Keep in mind that there are very different degrees of facial recognition software as well. The technology that the intelligence community and law enforcement organizations have is far more in-depth than the average software because countless lives could depend on its ability to identify subjects. Commercial technology like the facial recognition the spinTouch RapidScreen covid screening kiosk uses, for example, is far less extensive.

Does the spinTouch RapidScreen Collect and Store My Personal Data?

The spinTouch RapidScreen temperature kiosk uses facial recognition (not biometrics) to determine whether a person is granted access to your secure facility. It does not track or store your personal data, nor is there a risk of anyone else accessing your data. Personal security was a top priority for the innovators who were developing this technology, so you can rest assured that your personal data and health information is private and secure.

Common Myths About Facial Recognition

Much of the fear about facial recognition stems from simply a lack of understanding about the technology, as well as deliberate misinformation that has been spread about it. Let’s take a look at some of the most common myths about facial recognition.

Myth: Facial Recognition Software Can Access Phone and Tablet Records

This myth is entirely false. Some people assume that there is a digital database that stores facial recognition data, so they think that if they walk into a store with facial recognition cameras, for example, someone can use that data to log in with their FaceID. There is no link between these devices and this is not a risk that facial recognition can pose.

Myth: Facial Recognition Links Your Face to Your Digital Data

This myth is false as well. Your facial recognition data isn’t stored in any way that links it to your digital activity, so no one can use your picture to see your search history for example.

Embracing Security in the COVID-19 Era

Your security is of the utmost importance, both as it relates to your privacy and your health throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Rest assured that COVID screening with the spinTouch RapidScreen fever scanning kiosk will help your facility stay healthy without compromising your privacy.

The post Biometrics vs Facial Recognition: What’s the Difference? first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

While we all look forward to getting the pandemic under control, the reality is that now that the COVID-19 virus exists, it will always exist. We’re likely to be managing scattered outbreaks of it for decades to come, even when a vaccine is available.

That alone makes it important for businesses to keep up with a temp monitoring system, but we can all but guarantee that these systems will help with future pandemics too. Let’s take a look at the pattern of pandemics in the past.

The US’s History of Pandemics

While there have been plenty of pandemics in other areas of the world, the U.S. alone has an extensive history of pandemics. In fact, there have been five serious pandemics in the past century.

First came the H1N1 virus pandemic of 1918, killing 675,000 Americans and 50 million people worldwide. The H2N2 virus pandemic of 1957 and 1958 came next with 116,000 US deaths. Soon after, we had the H2N3 virus pandemic of 1968 which killed 100,000 in the US. In 2009, we had a pandemic from a mutated version of H1N1 which killed 12,000 Americans, and that finally brings us to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2.

These are merely the most serious pandemics, though you may remember other outbreaks that were also serious like the SARS outbreak of 2003. Five major pandemics within about 100 years is a scary number. Within that time, the longest we’ve gone without a major pandemic is 41 years. This means that we can safely expect to see at least one more major pandemic in our lifetimes. 

How Pandemics Affect the Economy

On top of their high infection rates, pandemics affect all of us by impacting the economy. In fact, there are several ways pandemics damage our collective wallets.

Healthcare Costs

We already know the U.S. has a problem with out-of-control healthcare costs. In the average year, around 137 million Americans struggle with medical debt.

When people have medical debt, they have less ability to stimulate the economy in other industries because all their money is going toward medical bills. On top of this, companies and providers throughout the healthcare industry end up with losses because some patients will never be able to pay their bills.

Lost Work for Illness

When large numbers of people get sick at the same time, it takes far too many out of the workforce than companies can accommodate. Not only do people miss work when they’re sick but people are sometimes forced to stay home to quarantine because they’ve been exposed to the virus.

On top of this, loved ones of those who fall ill often need to take time off to care for their loved ones, handle childcare, take their loved ones to doctors’ offices, and so on. This all adds up, reducing companies’ abilities to develop their products and make money.

Business Shutdowns

We’ve already seen this in the COVID-19 pandemic, but during any pandemic, it’s common for businesses to close temporarily if they can’t stay open safely. This was especially true before the days of employee temperature check kiosks.

When businesses shut down, no one involved is making money and it puts added strain on the economy. This is especially true among luxury industries like tourism and live entertainment. 

Trade Disruptions

The U.S. doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and many U.S. businesses require supplies from other countries to keep functioning. However, travel restrictions are a common strategy to slow a pandemic’s spread. This slows or restricts our ability to trade with other nations, making our businesses less productive and reducing their revenue.

Market Instability

In general, the stock market drops during times of uncertainty. Few situations create more instability than a global pandemic. For all the reasons above, investors expect pandemics to hurt the economy so the markets take a downturn.

The good news is that these drops in the market tend to be short-lived, but the damage is done nonetheless.

How Temperature Kiosks Can Help

A touchless temperature scanner isn’t just a game-changer during COVID-19, but it’s likely to benefit you in the pandemics you can expect in the future too.

Keeping Criteria Broad

All the pandemics of the past have had their own list of common symptoms. A fever, however, is a sign of a wide range of illnesses, not just COVID-19.

This means a touchless temperature device can identify if your employees have any type of illness or infection, and many of these illnesses are contagious. By requiring employees with fevers to stay home, you prevent them from spreading the illness to their coworkers so you have one employee out sick, not 20. 

Creating a Routine

One problem with the COVID-19 pandemic is that the virus had already spread so thoroughly before the US truly had an understanding of what it was, how far it had reached, and how contagious it was. If we had been using a body temp check system back then, we would have been able to minimize the spread from the start.

This means, with your touch free thermometer, you’ll be able to get a leg up on the next pandemic when it comes along. You’re also likely to have fewer employees getting sick during the flu season.

Taking Control Over Our Futures

Pandemics are a fact of life. Viruses and bacteria will mutate and shift, and every so often, one will become severe and start spreading around the world. A contactless thermometer allows you to prepare in advance and safeguard your workforce for everything from a normal flu season to COVID-19.

To get started, learn more about our touch-less body temperature scanner today.

The post How Temperature Kiosks are Helping Stop the Spread of Future Viruses first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

To safely stay open or reopen, businesses need to implement a variety of protocols from temperature scans to limited capacity. Much of this involves buying new equipment like temperature station kiosks. However, as we’ve recently seen with “Six Flags Fever,” those attempts can backfire if you don’t make the right purchasing choices or use them the right way.

What is “Six Flags Fever?”

It’s no secret that financially, the tourism industry has been hit especially hard by the pandemic. Multiple Six Flags locations tried to reopen by implementing safety protocols, including a temperature measurement camera system. The idea was to scan each guest’s temperature before they entered the park and block anyone with a fever.

Unfortunately, the thermal temperature scanner they used turned out to be wildly inaccurate. It’s partially because they bought the wrong equipment and partially because of the way they used it. Regardless, their own marketing videos showed some guests scanning as high as 108.7 degrees – a fever high enough to cause brain damage and one that would leave no one feeling well enough to stroll Six Flags.

Good Intentions, Bad Execution

Upon seeing those crazy temperatures in Six Flags’ marketing videos, journalists began investigating the parks and their use of touchless thermometer cameras. What they found was a comedy of errors when it came to following the guidelines.

The system Six Flags used was meant for indoor, temperature-stable environments. Six Flags, however, was measuring guests’ temperatures in a tent. Guidelines also dictate that the cameras should have been used in a room with minimal airflow, but there was plenty of wind as well as a heavy-duty air conditioning system in the tent.

On top of all this, guests are supposed to spend around 15 minutes in a temperature-controlled area before their scan so the weather from outside doesn’t affect their temperature reading. Instead, guests were standing in line outside in the heat before coming into the tent for an immediate temperature screening.

The Consequences of Six Flags’ Blunder

In some cases, Six Flags violated CDC guidelines while in other cases, they disregarded the use guidelines for the temperature reader. Regardless, these mistakes can have critical consequences.

For starters, the more businesses use inaccurate screening practices, the longer the pandemic will continue because we aren’t truly identifying those who need to quarantine. Six Flags already saw a 96% revenue drop in Q2 2020, and thi strain will continue as long as the pandemic does.

Depending on your local COVID-19 restrictions, if you use an inaccurate thermometer device, you could face high penalty fines. That’s on top of the cost of your employees getting and spreading COVID-19 as well as the cost of community-wide shutdowns due to new surges.

How to Avoid “Six Flags Fever”

Keeping your business and employees safe isn’t as difficult as you may think or as hard as Six Flags has made it out to be. It comes down to following a few steps and making the right choices.

Do Your Research

Take your decision seriously when choosing a no-touch thermometer. Research the manufacturer and how long they’ve been in business. Check for any online reviews as well as ratings from consumer protection agencies like the Better Business Bureau.

Understand the Guidelines and Use Cases

Each touchless thermometer is built for certain circumstances and settings. Six Flags, for example, used an indoor scanner in an outdoor setting, which was a key part of the inaccuracy problem. As you look for your temperature scanner, choose one that is marketed for the use you need, like an office setting.

In addition, read up on the manufacturer’s guidelines about how to install and use the system correctly. Make sure you can follow all those guidelines with the office or area you have. For example, if one scanner needs to be 10 feet away from the person but you only have 8 feet of space in your reception area, it’s not the right fit.

Avoid “Miracle Fixes”

This rule holds true in any situation: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Most reliable temperature scanners will take a second or two to get an accurate reading. They can typically only scan one person at a time, too. If you see a system that claims to read temperatures of multiple people at once and without a brief pause, it probably won’t live up to your expectations.

Understand Your Local Health Guidelines

Various cities and states have implemented their own legal requirements for COVID-19 safety. While they do change from time to time, it’s important to be well-versed in the restrictions for your business.

Make sure the temperature scanner you buy and the protocol you use follow the guidelines in your area. It’s best to set up a protocol that follows the strictest opening requirements that your state or city has imposed at any time, other than a full closure. This way, if restrictions tighten in the future, you’ll be prepared.

Post the Proper Guidelines

For temperature scanners to be accurate, they don’t just need to be installed correctly. The people being scanned need to follow certain practices too, like standing at a certain area and in some cases removing face coverings.

Post the protocol clearly in your scanning area so guests and employees can follow it. This is especially important if you don’t have reception staff in your scanning area to help people.

Keeping Your Business Safe

At this point, it’s becoming clear that COVID-19 could be a presence in our lives for the long haul. Safety procedures like temperature scanning are critical in keeping it at bay, but they only work if you use them correctly and steer clear of “Six Flags Fever.”

To see how RapidScreen could be a reliable addition to your safety protocol, learn more about our touchless temperature kiosk.

The post How to Avoid “Six Flags Fever” in Your Business first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

Now, businesses and governments are getting to work trying to repair those flaws and create a safer world for all of us with precautions that are here to stay. One change we expect to stay around for the long haul is temperature screening in buildings. There are several reasons why it’s likely to be a long-term solution.

1.   The Prolonged Pandemic

When COVID-19 first appeared, no one knew what to expect, how contagious it was, or how easily it would spread. Most of us didn’t expect to still be restricting our activities for the better part of a year, but here we are.

While there are still many unknowns, we do know that once a new virus exists, it doesn’t go away. There is hope that we’ll get it under control so the cases are fewer and farther between in the future, but the risk will always exist.

Of course, businesses can’t stay closed forever, so they’re implementing long-term precautions to keep everyone safe. One of those precautions is having a temperature scanner or temperature kiosk to check everyone’s temperature before giving them building access.

2.   Contact Tracing

Temperature testing stations don’t have to read temperatures alone. Many companies are integrating them with their security protocol. For instance, some scanners like spinTouch RapidScreen can use facial recognition software or integrate with access cards so it only grants access to employees while tracking their attendance.

Not only does this enhance your security but it assists in contact tracing. If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, you have a clear record of which of their co-workers were in the office with them and when.

3.   Keeping Businesses Open

One of the struggles with COVID-19 is there has been a series of peaks and valleys, so businesses keep opening back up when cases drop only to shut down again when the next peak hits.

When your business has a temperature reader controlling access, you help to nip outbreaks in the bud before they start spreading among your employees. This means fewer office closures to sanitize your building and fewer widespread shutdowns because you’re helping to reduce the spread of the virus in your community.

In this way, a temperature sensor serves as an investment tool for businesses. It’s likely to save business money in the long run because it can reduce shutdowns and sanitation costs.

4.   One More Security Integration

Another reason we expect temperature check stations to become the new norm is that they’re merely a small addition to the security measures many businesses already have.

Most buildings require some type of fob, access card, key code, fingerprint scanner, or facial recognition scanner to grant access. These precautions have been in place for years to protect the company’s sensitive data and to protect employees from theft and violence.

In our changing world, viruses including and beyond COVID-19 have become a rising daily threat. Adding a contactless thermometer is no different from those protocols to block other common threats.

In fact, the new precaution is easy to add because some temperature kiosks will integrate with existing security features. Instead of a contactless thermometer alongside an access card scanner, for example, buildings can have one kiosk that handles all their access controls. 

5.   Sustainability and Practicality

Business shutdowns haven’t been the only way COVID-19 is costing companies money. Some of the safety precautions are pricey too, and that includes having a staff member take each person’s temperature with a touchless thermometer.

Depending on the building’s traffic patterns, some businesses have had to hire a new full-time employee exclusively to take temperatures. Others have given the task to their receptionists, who have to continuously step away from their other duties to take temperatures. They have less time for projects including projects that would have made money for the company.

Now that it’s become clear that these safety precautions won’t be a short-term necessity but a long-term need, businesses need a more financially sustainable option. Temperature scanning kiosks are self-supported. In fact, some like RapidScreen can even enforce mask policies so they handle all the safety requirements, leaving the staff’s time available for generating revenue.

6.   Controlling Other Illnesses

Employee illnesses are a major expense for businesses, especially contagious illnesses. In fact, according to the CDC, employee sick days cost employers around $225 billion per year. That’s more than $1,600 per employee. Note that those numbers are also from 2015, long before COVID-19, so the costs are likely to be far higher in 2020 and beyond.

The Harvard Business Review estimates that up to 60% of those costs come from employees coming to work while sick. Those employees lose productivity because they’re not feeling well and they also spread the illness to multiple coworkers. 

Fevers aren’t unique to COVID-19. When businesses block access to anyone with a fever, they’ll also reduce the spread of the flu, colds, and countless other illnesses that could spread through their staff. As more businesses recognize the high cost of sick employees, they’ll be more likely to make the investment in a long-term temperature scanner.

Considering Safety for Years to Come

As the months of the COVID-19 pandemic have worn on, it’s become clear to more and more people that as a society, we need to work together to reduce the spread of illnesses in general. Practices like wearing a mask when you’re sick and reducing close contact are likely to stick around in the US as they have in many countries who have faced more pandemics in the past.

A temperature scanner is quickly becoming a cost-effective and powerful way for employers to protect their employees as well as their financial stability. To find out how it can help your business cut costs and stay open, learn more about the spinTouch RapidScreen.

The post Temperature Scanners in Buildings May Become the New Norm first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

To explain why cold weather presents a problem (and how you can avoid that problem), let’s take a closer look at how the typical thermometer and temperature scanner work.

How Temperature Scanners Work

Contactless thermometers and temperature scanners work by using a sensor to detect the temperature of the person’s forehead. With an advanced temperature scanner like RapidScreen, the internal algorithm uses that surface temperature reading to determine the person’s core body temperature.

How Cold Weather Can Impact Temperature Readers

Have you ever touched someone’s skin after they’ve come in from the cold weather? It’s usually cool to the touch. The same thing happens when someone comes in from the cold to enter your business: their skin is still cold from the winter weather, so the thermometer thinks the person’s body temperature is lower than it truly is.

If a person has a normal, healthy temperature, their temperature may look very low, even as low as 92 degrees. For reference, a normal body temperature is anywhere between 97 and 99 degrees, and hypothermia is defined as a temperature below 95 degrees. If, however, a person has a 100-degree fever, the cold weather could make their thermometer record a healthy temperature, so they’re able to enter the building because the cold masked their fever.

How to Get Accurate Temperature Screenings in the Winter

The most important way to keep your temperature screenings accurate in the winter is to use a “smarter” thermometer which can make sure your readings are more accurate. The RapidScreen allows you to set a low-temperature threshold, and if someone’s temperature is below that threshold, it tells the scanner that the temperature is inaccurate. If this happens, simply require the person to wait in the room-temperature lobby for a few minutes until their skin warms up and they can get an accurate reading.

Hot weather can have a similar effect in the opposite direction. People are out in the heat so their skin gets warm and gives off an artificially high temperature. As a whole, this sacrifices the accuracy of your temperature screenings so you can’t be confident that you’re allowing healthy people in and keeping unhealthy people out.

The reality is that there is too much at stake to risk allowing someone with COVID-19 to enter your office. Take this case for example: a Georgia man wanted time off work, so he lied and told his employer he’d tested positive for COVID-19. Between disinfecting the entire office, closing the business for days for that disinfecting process, and requiring several of the man’s co-workers to quarantine, that one claim of COVID-19 cost the employer $100,000. 

Now imagine how much worse the situation would have been if the man actually had been infected with COVID-19 and had passed it to several of his colleagues. Multiply those costs even more because far more employees would have needed time off to quarantine, and the office may have needed multiple disinfecting sessions if the secondary cases weren’t caught right away. Those secondarily infected colleagues could infect even more colleagues in the meantime, and the expensive and risky domino effect continues.

The same would happen to a business that accidentally allows someone who’s sick to enter their office because their handheld thermometer cannot compensate for the weather.

To keep your business safe, invest in a smart temperature scanner instead. Learn more about the spinTouch RapidScreen can protect your business, employees, and financial stability.

The post Newsflash: Your Temperature Scanner Might Not Work in Cold Weather first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

These stand-alone fever detection systems are cropping up as a first defense to scan for temperatures before customers can enter a facility. So far, they’ve been installed in a variety of settings, from restaurants and offices and even the U.S. Army.

Here’s a closer look at some of the biggest benefits a temperature screening kiosk delivers to your business. 

1. Built for Scalability

Right now, many businesses (like those in Wisconsin and Denver) are only allowed to operate at 25% capacity. This, however, will hopefully change in the coming weeks and months, which means that more people will be occupying the same size of your space. Temperature kiosks are ideal for helping businesses prepare for fluctuating crowd sizes. It’s simply a matter of adding one or more terminals to your space as your traffic increases.  

Because they’re compact, you don’t need to dedicate much space to them and can continue with business as usual. As your local area’s requirements shift up or down in terms of maximum capacity, you can simply add or remove temperature testing stations as needed.

2. Protects User Health Privacy

Before COVID, conducting employee temperature checks in the workplace was considered as a form of medical exam. Now, some of these workplace guidelines have been relaxed in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. However, there still remains the concern of user privacy, both for the employee and customers entering your facility.

When any type of health information is shared, whether it’s the results of a COVID test or simply a person’s temperature, privacy concerns arise. The results of each scan should be confidential, especially as those who scan positive may be subjected to public embarrassment.

With a temperature kiosk, though, results can be delivered remotely to eliminate the fear of social stigma. This helps to protect employee and guest privacy, and organizations can establish an alert process to address any positive readings in a timely manner.

3. Reduces Human Contact

Currently, many businesses who are already doing temperature scans at the door are using manual methods that involve employees to take a reading in real time. Though masks and other PPE can help to protect the employee, there isn’t a way to reduce your risk to zero. What’s more, doing manual temperature checks make it impossible to maintain the recommended six-foot social distance recommendations.

Temperature kiosks are designed to eliminate these inefficiencies, when used correctly. Remote monitoring means employees do not have to observe every temperature reading and results, which creates a hands-off approach and offers more protection to your employees.

A temperature testing station should be self-service and hands-free, both of which are offered with the spinTouch RapidScreen kiosk.

4. Lowers Operating Expenses

Many companies who rely on employees to conduct screenings at the door may not have thought about the cost of doing this. When a person is in charge of this task, it either takes away an employee from their normal duties or it means adding more labor hours to your payroll. Or, if you have chosen to outsource temperature screening, you’re taking on additional expenses and risks to your business.

This also doesn’t take into account the added expenses of purchasing thermal scanners, masks, gloves, and other PPE for employees, and training time on the various procedures and precautions required for proper scanning.

Replacing all of the above with a self-service temperature kiosk eliminates these expenses and provides a more efficient, cost-friendly alternative. There’s very little training involved (usually required for management and the person conducting remote monitoring only), and it doesn’t require ongoing investments in PPE, batteries, and labor hours.

5. Offers Convenience for Heavy Traffic

For high traffic facilities, trying to scan each visitor’s temperature with a contactless thermometer at the door can create bottlenecks at the entry and long lines into the streets. It’s simply not a feasible option and could result in fewer visitors to your business.  

If you have a large location, share your location with other businesses (such as an office park), or even have multiple locations, a temperature kiosk offers convenience in spades. For starters, you won’t have the long wait times that can come with manual temperature scanning, nor will you have to worry about employees needing bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, or other needs to leave their post. 

Especially important for multi-location businesses, you can standardize the way you take temperatures upon entry instead of risking each location doing things differently. This reduces the potential for inaccuracies or for screenings to slip through the cracks.

What’s more, kiosk data allows you to view composite results and individual locations to flag areas that might be under a potential threat of an outbreak.

6. Provides Long-Term Advantages

Temperature kiosks like the spinTouch RapidScreen offer additional features and advantages that go beyond temperature screening. Though there’s no end in sight, the pandemic won’t last forever, which means you’ll need to find new ways to use your kiosk investment. 

For starters, some kiosks offer facial recognition technology, which may be an effective tool for access control. This is an important feature right now to help identify users in high traffic areas that might not have passed the temperature screening. You can also use it to restrict access to certain areas for individuals who may have a fever. 

How to Choose a Temperature Scanner for Your Business

As you’re exploring your options for a remote temperature scanner, it’s important to consider the short-term needs and long-term benefits. Explore spinTouch RapidScreen’s solution and how we’re helping businesses provide an extra layer of protection to their employees, their customers, and their bottom line. 

The post 6 Big Business Benefits of a Temperature Kiosk first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

Fast forward less than a year and thermometers are one of the top tools we use to control a lethal pandemic. It’s not surprising that demand has spiked, and not just for personal thermometers. More and more businesses are investing in advanced thermal technologies to scan employees’ temperatures each day, blocking anyone with a fever from entering the office.

This has happened in the US as well as around the world. In fact, let’s take a look at how COVID-19 has changed the thermal technology market.

The Market for Thermal Technology

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the demand for thermal technology has grown, but the numbers are staggering. Consider the “before and after.”

In 2019, before COVID-19 became widespread, the worldwide market for thermal scanners was worth $3.4 billion. It was expected to increase with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.8% from 2020-2027.

Those projections changed dramatically with the COVID-19 pandemic. A study published in August 2020 projected to market to skyrocket to $7.6 billion by 2027 with a CAGR of 8.9%. That’s close to double the projections from 2019.

Why Demand for Thermal Temperature Scanner Technology is Rising

When we talk about “thermal scanning technologies,” we’re talking about tools for contactless temperature screening like touchless thermometer devices and large-scale temperature scanners. Why has the demand for these increased in particular? It turns out that there are several reasons.

Wider Uses

Before we were living through a major pandemic, the only businesses that typically had use for thermal scanners were physician offices and some security companies. Even then, many of those healthcare providers used standard thermometers instead of contactless scanners.

Today, many employers and businesses are taking a temperature measurement for each person that comes through their doors. They’re also looking for contactless options for these temperature screenings so they don’t put an employee at risk by requiring them to get close to each person to take their temperature. Now that there are more reasons to want a temperature scanner, more consumers are adding to the demand in the market.

Privacy Options

Another challenge with thermometers in COVID-19 has been privacy. With a traditional thermometer, someone has to take your temperature and see the reading so they can decide whether to let you into the office. That means they’re getting private data about your health.

To answer the concern, innovators in the thermal scanning industry are developing more secure, private ways to screen for a fever. For instance, the spinTouch RapidScreen automatically scans each person as they walk up to the kiosk. It shows them a green light if they’ve passed the temperature check or a red light if they have a fever.

For those with a fever, the kiosk can integrate with many security systems to block entry. Otherwise, your reception staff can watch and make sure the person doesn’t enter. Regardless, no one sees or stores the person’s exact temperature so employees maintain their privacy.

More Awareness of Sick Days

Employee illnesses have always been expensive for employers. In fact, employee illnesses were costing US employers $530 billion per year as of 2018, between work absences and lost productivity. Because of COVID-19, though, these costs have soared and have come into the spotlight so more employers are paying attention to them.

This means they’re more likely to take measures in the future to stop COVID-19 from spreading throughout their workforces. Temperature screening is one of the most effective ways to meet that goal, so an efficient thermometer device is more of an investment than an expense.

Looking to the Future

COVID-19 isn’t the first major pandemic the world has seen, and it won’t be the last. Even beyond COVID-19, employers often struggle with employee illnesses during cold and flu season because those illnesses spread quickly too.

Fortunately, a temperature reader doesn’t just identify possible COVID-19 infections. Fevers appear in a wide range of illnesses, so by blocking everyone who has a fever, employers can expect to reduce the spread of many types of illnesses. One piece of technology can protect their workforce from the flu season as well as other pandemics that come our way.

Increased Safety Awareness

Most employees didn’t think of their offices as risks to their health in the past. Because of how contagious COVID-19 is, though, it’s made people think far more about the risks they run each day by coming into close contact with others. They’re realizing that this puts them in the line of fire for COVID-19 as well as the flu and countless other contagious diseases.

As a result, there is a growing social pressure on employers to protect their employees’ health. By adding precautions like a temperature station, employers can improve their brand’s image while caring for their top assets: their staff.

Seamless Integrations

Security is a top concern for businesses across all industries, so many already have security technology. Perhaps employees have key cards they must scan to get access to the building for example.

The right no touch thermometer can integrate so well into these security measures that businesses can add the temperature scanning with little or no disruption to their usual process. It makes temperature screening a more viable option for a large number of employers, which adds to the demand for those screening products.

For example, many employers integrate RapidScreen with their door access. Employees use the kiosk to both take their temperature and scan their access card, and if they pass both of those security measures, the door unlocks.

Getting Your Temperature Scanner Early

Market projections show the demand for thermal scanners increasing dramatically over the coming years. Whether manufacturers can produce enough of that technology to meet those growing demands, however, remains to be seen.

To make sure you get what you need, now is the time to buy your thermal scanner. Find out more about what the spinTouch RapidScreen has to offer.

The post COVID Creates High Demand for Thermal Technologies first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

However, in the process, you’re taking in part of your employee’s health data: their body temperature. Some employers worry that this opens the door to the liability of health privacy regulations like HIPAA. What liability do you have for privacy and how can your thermal scanner help? Let’s dig into the details. 

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It’s a federal US law that was passed in 1996 requiring healthcare providers and other healthcare organizations to keep patients’ medical data secure.

HIPAA is an extensive law with a variety of detailed requirements all designed around the goal of protecting people’s health information. It regulates what information an organization or provider can give out and who they can give it to. HIPAA also regulates the way organizations need to store data to protect it from cybercrime.

Does HIPAA Apply to Temperature Screenings?

The relationship between HIPAA and using a body temperature scanner is murky. Whether HIPAA applies to your employee temperature screenings depends on your organization and the way you use and store the information.

HIPAA typically only applies to organizations and individuals who are defined as “covered entities” under the law. This generally includes anyone in the healthcare industry (like health insurance companies, healthcare providers, and so on) who are acting in a healthcare capacity. It doesn’t typically apply to employers who are acting in an employment capacity, although it does apply to “business associates” of covered entities, so there may be exceptions.

In other words, because you’re taking the employee’s temperature to determine if they’re fit to work, you’re acting as an employer so you wouldn’t likely have HIPAA requirements. However, if you use their temperature to determine if they need a COVID-19 test or further medical assessments, HIPAA regulations may apply.

Because there are some gray areas, it’s best to assume you need to adhere to HIPAA guidelines so you’re covered in case someone makes a claim. 

Why is HIPAA Important?

HIPAA laws are typically enforced by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services. The OCR assesses fines for HIPAA violations depending on the severity of the violation, whether it was intentional or accidental, and other factors. Those fines can be up to $50,000 per violation.

If OCR finds a HIPAA violation, you’ll also need to create a corrective action plan. These can include expensive measures as well.

Beyond the financial component, having a HIPAA violation on your company’s record can damage the community’s trust in you. Even if you aren’t in the healthcare business, it could hurt your reputation.

How to Get Privacy and HIPAA Compliance from Your Thermal Scanner

To be on the safe side, how do you make sure your temp monitoring system is HIPAA-compliant? There are several crucial precautions you should take.

Choose a Self-Supported Kiosk

If you use a typical touch free thermometer, it requires that one of your employees uses it to check their colleague’s temperature. That means the employee using the thermometer now has private health information about the other person. If they’re reading the temperature out loud, others may hear it too. All of this could constitute a HIPAA violation.

Instead, choose a self-supported temperature device like a body temp check kiosk. This kiosk only shows a “pass” or “fail” result and it only shows it to the employee being checked. No one else is needed. Some kiosks like the RapidScreen even integrate with your security system so it blocks anyone with a fever from accessing the office.

Avoid Storing Temperatures

There are some risks involved with having a staff member take your employees’ temperatures, but there are far greater risks when you start storing and tracking their temperatures, especially if you store them with employees’ names or other personal data. 

HIPAA requires that you have a variety of security features to keep the data safe from hacking and other data theft. For COVID-19 purposes, there isn’t a reason you’d need to track employee temperatures anyway. You can simply allow or deny them access based on their temperature each day.

Choose a Thermometer with Privacy Options

It’s important to know whether your contactless thermometer is maintaining privacy practices while you use it. If your system is storing or tracking data in a non-HIPAA-compliant way, you’re still liable for the violation.

Choose a thermometer or kiosk with options you can customize. By default, RapidScreen has all data storing and tracking options turned off, so you don’t need to worry about unintentional HIPAA violations in that regard. If you choose to turn on those options, be sure to understand and take action on any precautions you need to add.

Educate Your Employees

You might be well-versed in HIPAA regulations, but if any one of your employees violates that law, your organization is the one that’s liable. Even if you set up your equipment and protocols in a way that should avoid HIPAA liability, make sure your employees understand the regulations to follow too.

Otherwise, your reception staff may start tracking employees’ fevers thinking they’re taking a good initiative to help the office. Without realizing it, they’re opening you up to serious legal risks.

Don’t Send Data to Your Health Plan

While it’s a gray area whether your employment temperature checks fall under HIPAA coverage, your health insurance plan is a covered entity without a doubt. That means communicating with them about employees’ temperatures could leave you vulnerable.

Some companies think they’re being helpful by alerting their health plan if an insured employee registers a fever, assuming it will make the insurer more likely to cover the costs of a COVID-19 test because the employee has symptoms. It’s a kind thought, but it could backfire with serious legal consequences.

Protecting Your Business and Your Employees

The reason you’re taking temperature checks in the first place is likely to protect your business from COVID-19’s impact. However, if you don’t take the right precautions, HIPAA violations could put you at a greater financial risk. Instead, choose a privacy-focused, HIPAA-compliant temperature scanning kiosk.

The post How Do Thermal Scanners Offer Privacy and HIPAA Compliance? first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.

Now that we are all itching to get back to work and to what we knew as “normal,” it is quickly being realized that the “normal” we knew doesn’t exist anymore. Businesses all over the world are adopting new technologies to keep their employees, customers, and guests safe – and for many of them, their first line of defense is contactless thermometer stations.

What are contactless thermometer stations?

Contactless thermometers measure the body temperature of a person from a distance of about 3-feet. Certain products, like the RapidScreen Automated Temperature Kiosk Screening System, have an alert system that is activated when someone has a fever or is not wearing a mask – a piece of personal protective equipment that is required by many public and private businesses. 

Who will use contactless thermometer stations?

While touchless thermometer stations haven’t exactly become commonplace as of yet, they are already being seen implemented throughout the world with the expectation that regular temperature screening will become just another part of our daily lives. 

Already, companies like Amazon, McDonald’s, and the Washington Post, have implemented temperature screening kiosks into their security measures, and according to the Global Association for the Attractions Industry, Disney’s executive chairman is seriously considering following suit for its USA Parks.

In addition, Frontier Airlines became the first U.S. airline to require body temperature scanning for each person boarding a flight and it’s expected that other airlines and airports will be following these added safety measures.

How will contactless thermometer stations protect people?

Essentially, the body temperature monitors that businesses install will protect people by pointing out who has an elevated temperature immediately, without any stalling or interruption to the workflow. 

Temperature kiosks work almost instantly by reading temperatures in just 2 seconds from up to 3-feet away. If a person walking through the body temperature scanner has a high temperature, they will be called to another, separate station for a second reading to ensure the presence of a fever.

If it’s determined that a fever is present, that person will be sent home for a span of time determined by the company. In doing so, the company prevents the spread of viruses including, but not limited to, COVID-19.

As of yet, thermometer kiosks are not required or regulated by federal law and it will be up to each business to decide if they want to implement them or not. However, the FDA “does not tend to object” to the widespread use of thermometer kiosks during and after the pandemic and has further said that they will be quite flexible with their regulations in order to put the health and safety of the public first.

The post How Companies are Using Thermometer Kiosks to Protect Their Staff and Guests   first appeared on An Interactive Digital Agency.