COVID SCREENING SOLUTIONS – FAQ
Covid Screening Process for Utilities
What is the Force 5 Gatekeeper COVID-19 strategy to help protect the safety of our workers and visitors?
Force 5 supports your utility by being your COVID-19 system of record. The Gatekeeper solution provides utility companies with the ability to pre-register employees/visitors with health screening questions prior to coming on site. It gives organizations an opportunity to provide recorded attestations of temperature screening results, provide touchless kiosks for visitor/employee arrival, and email alerts to site points of contact about the vetted entry, helping utility companies drastically reduce risk and contribute to a culture of health, safety, and compliance.
Does Force 5 have an offering for screening employees?
Yes. Gatekeeper complements your utility’s personnel screening solution at the front end of your organization by providing a touchless kiosk, ensuring your employees attest to health- and travel-related questions prior to site entry. Once they successfully pass the screening process, Gatekeeper enables organizations to provide a certification to employees validating that they have been screened prior to entry.
Does Force 5 have an offering for screening visitors?
Yes. Gatekeeper complements your utility’s personnel screening solution at the front end of your organization by providing pre-visit health questionnaires to all visitors prior to coming on site. Once the visitor successfully completes the pre-visit health questionnaire without issue, the visitor will receive a visitor QR code to identify themselves once on site. Upon arrival, the visitor will present the QR code at a touchless kiosk to reflect their arrival and provide additional COVID-19 attestations. Next, the visitor will proceed to a physical screening station where verbal questioning and contactless temperature checks will occur. Once a visitor completes that station successfully, the visitor will move to the front desk of the organization, provide the QR code to an appointed staff member, and receive a visitor label reflecting that they have passed the screening. Finally, the appointed staff member will log in the visitor, and an email alert will notify the point of contact that his or her visitor has arrived.
COVID Screening Technology
Can we have a demo of the Temperature Check Kiosk in the picture?
Not at this time. The pictures in the marketing material are some designs that our R&D team is working on. We are currently testing IR cameras that connect directly to our kiosks but have not been able to achieve the consistency that meets our standards for non-stop temperature checks that do not rely on continuous calibration of the camera because of changes in ambient temperatures.
Do you integrate to other IR cameras? How?
Yes, depending on the camera, we can connect via their SDK or a dry contact that is fired when an alarm/alert is triggered.
Which thermal camera should we use?
Trusting the thermal results is a primary concern for all companies. Consider the following as you assess camera options:
- Not all cameras are created equal. For example, the FLIR A320 has been FDA cleared with 510K certification for skin-surface temperature measurements. It was recently developed for previous epidemics, SARS and swine flu.
- How long has the solution been on the market (bevy of new solutions)?
- Has the solution been successfully used during other pandemics, like the recent SARS and swine flu epidemics?
- Be aware of accuracy claims, fully automated systems, low-cost solutions, crowd-scanning solutions, and false claims like fever detection, keeps you safe, avoids spreading infection, etc.
Do IR cameras work? Are they accurate?
There are several things that impact the effectiveness of an IR camera. Absolute accuracy of a thermal camera depends on many factors: emissivity, spatial resolution, detector and system noise, temperature drift, etc. The expected accuracy of the camera is no better than +2 degrees Celsius or +3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
Will an IR camera diagnose COVID-19?
A diagnostic decision can only be rendered by a healthcare professional using FDA-approved methods (fever thermometer, blood test, viral tests, etc.).
A thermal camera cannot detect or determine if someone is sick or healthy, has a fever or not, has an infection of any kind, or is contagious or not. A thermal camera can only detect, measure, and document the variations of the skin’s surface temperature.
A thermal camera used for this application requires an FDA 510K clearance. With this clearance, it can be used as an “adjunct” screening tool for skin surface temperature.
How do we properly measure body temperature using an IR camera?
Body temperature is correlated as the closest to the inner canthus/tear duct. Other surface areas anywhere on the face will not work properly. Eyewear will obstruct the tear ducts and will need to be removed. The person should be standing at a fixed distance from the camera.
What camera pixel resolution do I need?
Using a camera with 320 pixels, you can capture an image at 20 inches.
Using a camera with 160 pixels, you can capture an image at 10 inches.
Can we scan a group of people for faster processing?
Pointing a camera in a crowd to detect body temperature will not work. Assuming you would be pointing the camera at around 5 feet, that would require a camera with 12 megapixels, which currently does not exist.
What is the best way to set up a thermal camera to get the best temperature results?
There are two legitimate measurement setups available for elevated body temperature measurement: One uses external black body reference to increase the +/- variance. The other uses a relative comparison of skin surface temperatures (baseline group).
Both setups are valid and require manual correction from time to time to account for external factors that are impacting the thermoregulation of the human body. Thermoregulation is the human body’s ability to keep its inner core temperature stable. This results in an increase or decrease of skin surface temperature as the skin is the interface to the environment.
Do you have information on IR cameras that can provide me some education?
We found these videos from a well-known vendor in the IR market to be very helpful:
Operational Policies
Privacy Policy
Consider creating a privacy policy for employees, vendors, and contractors. Key elements might include 1) your screening process, 2) that you may deny access to anyone based upon their screening results, and 3) how you will process, use, and maintain the information you capture through your screening process.
Exception Handling Policy
Consider creating a policy for employees, vendors, and contractors that defines your process for COVID screening (i.e., temperature scanning) and how your company will handle those that test outside your limits (i.e., will not be permitted to enter the facility).
Camera in Use Notice and Privacy Policy
If your screening process involves thermal cameras, consider creating posters to notify entrants that a thermal camera is in active use to detect temperatures for employees and visitors. Notify them that entrance may be denied based upon camera readings.
Let’s Talk
We’re working with some of the nation’s largest utility enterprises to define and implement their return-to-work strategy. Our integrated hardware-software solutions are ready for rollout. Let’s talk about how we can drastically reduce your COVID risk.
Mike Almeyda
Senior Account Manager
David Johnson
Account Manager