Thermal Camera Fever Detection Screening As A Tool in Controlling Pandemic: A Nurse’s Point Of View

The thermal camera, which was once a niche product within the Video Surveillance industry, has seen a tremendous boom as manufacturers and suppliers scramble to offer solutions that may provide benefit to stop the spread of Covid-19.

After spending almost 30 years working as a registered nurse before transitioning to my current position as a Security Integrator and licensed Low Voltage Contractor, I feel particularly compelled to ensure that the solutions we offer provide strong medical merit. Reaching back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, the well-known quote “first, do no harm” comes to mind. One interpretation of the origins of this quote is as follows:

“I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.”

In my current role as CEO of scDataCom, I believe we should use a similar mindset (of course, substituting the word “patients” with the word “customers”) and ensure that marketing, selling, and installing fever detection camera systems is in keeping with the Hippocratic philosophy.

If thermal camera solutions bring our company profit but do not reduce our end user’s risk by providing them with improved health and safety, or if the technology tool offers a false sense of safety, then we are certainly acting in a deleterious and mischievous manner.

My conclusion is this: thermal cameras can be an effective tool within a comprehensive screening system aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus, provided that we as integrators offer the necessary education and recommend clear operating procedures so that our customers can manage the results of the screening.

Given the high percentage of “silent spreaders”, a fever detection camera, even with instantaneous analytics and alerting, is not a stand-alone tool, and is not intended to replace the critical role that testing, social distancing, and other tools provide, but may offer an excellent benefit to our customers if deployed correctly.

As always, we seek to provide our customers with cutting edge technology solutions that offer the best protection possible. We aim to take a “long game” view of both our business and our relationship with our customers and community. During this pandemic, we choose not to exploit fear and false promises with quick sells that could do harm – on our customer’s wallets, our reputation, and ultimately from a public health perspective. Not every customer will benefit from a thermal camera system. For those that will, scDataCom will proceed carefully, using our industry knowledge and network to provide the best technology tools on the market, and partnering with our customers to deploy the right system configuration in order to provide a clear benefit to their operating environment.

We are all in this together!