Oprema – the Cardiff-based multi-brand distributor of security equipment – and its partner, the video surveillance product manufacturer Dahua Technology, have donated thermal imaging to University Hospital Llandough.
The firms report that the product can automatically detect a person’s temperature in less than a second without the need for personal contact; providing primary screening (pictured; in the outpatients’ department). Pictured, left to right: Adam He, Technical Manager, Dahua; Tim Duggan, Technical Director, Oprema; and Amanda Roach, Cardiff & Vale University Health Board.
The process as used by many hospitals involves key workers using a handheld infrared thermometer to measure people’s temperatures as they enter. For this to work, the person doing the temperature monitoring has to get close to the person arriving, increasing the risk of the virus being transmitted as the person may be a carrier. These manual checks are also very time-consuming; and no-one attending hospital wants to wait longer than necessary.
Hence the Dahua Thermal Solution has an accuracy of plus or minus 0.3 degrees C; and removes the need for hand-held thermometers, reducing the risk to staff and speeding up patient entry.
CCTV and thermal temperature measurement can automatically detect if a person has a higher-than-normal body temperature, and can screen individuals or larger groups at once. 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 30 minutes.
The donated product has been installed in the Trauma & Orthopaedics Department at Llandough, in Cardiff. Should someone enter the space with a high temperature, an alarm sounds as an indication they are potentially carrying a virus and should be checked by a medic.
Chris Wilson, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Trauma & Orthopaedics at Llandough, says: “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 donated 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. Thank you to Oprema and Dahua for donating this great solution, it is really helpful in this current climate and very much appreciated by our team.”
Matthew Epps, Managing Director at Oprema, adds: “Being our local hospital, we wanted to donate the Dahua Thermal Solution to University Hospital Llandough to help in the fight against COVID-19, reducing the risk to our community’s frontline key workers and freeing up time for them to perform other critical functions. The same solution has been implemented in other environments requiring the screening of a high volume of people since the beginning of the pandemic, including airports and NHS Nightingale. We’re really pleased to be doing our bit locally by donating one of these systems to University Hospital Llandough.”
The distributor adds that the product can be up and running in as little as 24 hours from point of order.
