The novel coronavirus brought with it global paranoia. Suddenly we were sanitizing our hands profusely, and thermal thermometers became ubiquitous. Since one of the early symptoms of the infection is fever, it became a key marker for preliminary testing. In the initial months of the pandemic, some specific industries saw a dramatic boom, like healthcare and pharmaceutical and hygiene products, which was profitable for companies like Reckitt Benckiser. According to Reports and Data, the Healthcare Temperature Monitoring Devices Market is estimated to deliver a CAGR of 4.79% from 2020 to 2027. The pandemic has seen several developments in different facets of the sector right from optimizing the efficiency of the device to making it economical for consumers. It also led to a more profound intersection between the medical and tech companies, with tech companies investing more and more in healthcare devices, especially the ones that witnessed a drastic rise in demand, such as ventilators and thermometers.
To prevent it from spreading, stringent social distancing measures were taken, which increased the demand for contactless temperature monitoring devices. Thermal imaging cameras gained popularity for febrile screenings. These cameras can screen for body temperature, and in case a particular temperature threshold is crossed, it gives both visual and acoustic alerts. The fastest diagnostic test for COVID-19 takes around fifteen minutes, with some tests taking an entire week. When lockdown measures were relaxed, companies like tech giant Amazon resorted to thermal screening technology to keep people safe. Thermal cameras were also used during previous epidemic outbreaks of swine flu, MERS, and SARS, although its demands have skyrocketed since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Automotive giant Ford Motor Co. also deployed around 380 infrared thermal scanners.
Healthcare companies exhausted all resources available at their disposal to fast track COVID-19 testing. GOQii, a smart wearables maker, launched a smart band with sensors to measure temperature and partnered with Thryve, a Germany-based health tech startup, for a clinical study in India to diagnose COVID-19 with this device. The company’s device, named Vital 3.0, was made in less than two months and can help in tracking vitals, includingbody temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, sleep patterns, and step count. Vital 3.0 enables continuous monitoring with a +/- 0.3 °F accuracy. Polysense Technologies developed a range of smart healthcare temperature monitoring devices built on the LoRa technology. The devices WxS x810-IRTMS and WxS x800-IRTM are in production and were commercialized recently. The government of Italy has purchased five kits to assist in their efforts to contain COVID-19.
SkyWater Technology Inc. had announced in May 2020 that it had been tasked to manufacture a patch the size of a small bandage, which, when worn, can help monitor elevated body temperatures. The patch is powered by a microchip designed by an Ohio-based design company Linear ASICs and will be manufactured at SkyWater’s factory in Minnesota. The patch is worn by the wearer and connected wirelessly to a smartphone to monitor the body temperature. The patches produced as part of the project, which is supported by New York-based investment company Asymmetric Return Capital, will be distributed by Upward Health.
A device named OXY2, developed by HELYXON and IIT Madras, a remote patient monitoring solution, recently became commercially available. The device is a self-contained, wireless, and portable, and can be clipped on the finger. This data is streamed via Bluetooth to a smartphone or through the internet to the central monitoring system. It is powered by a coin-cell battery and acts as portable patient monitors that are an economical version of the large patient monitors used in hospitals.
Academia also put in all the efforts to uncover more information about the novel coronavirus. A June 2020 study titled, “Continuous temperature monitoring by a wearable device for early detection of febrile events in the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Taiwan, 2020,” discussed thermal screening. The study, published in the Journal of Microbiology, Immunology, and Infection, discussed the HEARThermo, “a wearable physiological monitor for remotely monitoring the health status of people under risk of infection, provides real-time data and decision support for healthcare providers and public health agencies.” The research concluded that this device, capable of continuously monitoring body temperature with heart rate variation, might help provide early detection and point-of-care testing in response to the ongoing pandemic.
Another research paper titled, “Wearable Sensors for COVID-19: A Call to Action to Harness Our Digital Infrastructure for Remote Patient Monitoring and Virtual Assessments,” studied clinically relevant physiological metrics that can be measured using commercially available devices, highlighting the role they play in tracking the condition and recovery of COVID-19 positive patients and healthcare workers. The research study, published in Frontiers in Digital Health, aimed to trigger a call to action among medical professionals and engineers towards developing digital health platforms to monitor and manage the ongoing pandemic.
These are some instances of healthcare temperature monitoring devices becoming more common around us. The practice of febrile screenings at the entrance of hospitals and both corporate and residential complexes, along with attempts to increase clinical and door-to-door testing, has increased the demand for the healthcare temperature monitoring devices market. The unprecedented rise in demand for these devices is expected to be steady in the foreseeable future, at least till we can return to normal and such testing is rendered unnecessary by an effective vaccine.
