A regional Victorian hospital is testing a multifunctional health screening device for COVID-19 and other potential illnesses.
The world-first touchless triage kiosk, developed in Tullamarine, Victoria, by Elenium Automation in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), enables Nagambie HealthCare employees, visitors and contractors to quickly and effortlessly self-assess their vital health signs, including temperature, respiratory and heart rate at a safe distance before being allowed entry.
During the trial, if a health sign concern is detected, the kiosk will immediately link the user via a video call to a triage nurse for further assessment. This eliminates contact between staff and visitors during the process and the user will not enter the Nagambie HealthCare precinct.
Nagambie HealthCare is a community owned health service, which jointly operates a hospital, aged care and medical centre within a rural health complex in Nagambie, 140km north of Melbourne.
Speaking at the launch, Nagambie HealthCare chief executive Bronwyn Beadle said she was excited to be involved.
“As a rural health and aged care facility we have ensured a focus on maintaining restricted visits as opposed to ‘lockdown’, which has created significant resource challenges in screening all those who access our services,” Ms Beadle explained.
“To enable this restriction, we have created a single-user entry and exit for care recipients, employees and visitors with sizeable people movements through our doors each day.
“The technology in the kiosk will markedly reduce the resources required to undertake screening and will enable us to trial the assessment and triaging of people entering our facility during its round-the-clock operation.
“It is such an innovative and exciting opportunity for us as a rural health service, with an enormous potential public health benefit and added peace of mind for our employees, in-patients and, more importantly, our residents.”
Elenium Automation chief executive Aaron Hornlimann said the solution would lay the basis for hospital and aged care facilities to explore future take-up of the low-cost, efficient and self-managed technology.
“We will recover from COVID-19, but circumstances will not remain the same, and increased attention to effective and efficient health screening will be increasingly sought after,” Mr Hornlimann said.
“The kiosk’s touchless detection screening technology is adaptable, well suited to the times and applicable to different controlled access settings in addition to medical and aviation environments.”
Technology used in the Nagambie HealthCare trial includes:
- touchless control of a device using voice recognition
- touchless control of a device using head movement control
- touchless vital-sign detection including temperature, respiratory and heart rate
- video linking the kiosk user to the Nagambie HealthCare on-duty triage nurse.
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