Editor's Note: This blogpost was first published in July 2020, and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

There is no doubt that the pandemic has caused many industries to shift their usual processes and practices to ensure safety for those working in that space as well as those stopping by. Healthcare is amongst the most crucial industries to be able to keep up and stay on top of hygiene practices to ensure a safe and secure environment for healthcare workers, patients, and their families.

Computer Vision and Vision AI technologies have come a long way in recent years and are becoming more accessible and cost-effective for different industries including healthcare to implement. Whether it’s to gain insights into customers, or for safety and security, businesses alike globally are seeing benefits in implementing vision analytics.

Many hospitals, doctors surgeries, and other healthcare environments are quickly having to adopt and implement different vision analytics technologies and devices to be one step ahead of any potential danger for people within these environments. Even after the pandemic has subsided, vision analytics have a secured place within the healthcare industry in assisting to provide safe environments.  

Here are 3 vision AI solutions to assist in providing a safe and secure environment for healthcare workers, patients, and their families.

1. Temperature Detection

Hospitals and other healthcare environments are generally high-traffic areas that see many people coming in and out frequently. Using non-contact temperature detection allows for resources to be placed elsewhere as well as lowers risks for transmission.

Healthcare environments require a high demand for quick response times as well which means practitioners must identify and contain potentially infectious patients before coming into contact with others.

Vision analytics solutions can play a huge role in easing the strain put on systems through non-intrusive automated thermal scanners which when placed at entrances and exits can help notify staff of potential risks allowing them to handle the matter quickly and efficiently while ensuring safety for others.

2. Contactless Check-ins and Contact Tracking

Healthcare staff must be able to protect patients from the potential spread of disease by ensuring that all patients and guests are checked in upon entry with the right precautions taken to help keep the environment safe.

By using a contactless check-in process, queues are able to be managed by kiosks that can scan for body temperature and register persons into the system to store contact details and visual recognition data through cameras to minimize risks that are associated with traditional face-to-face check-in.

Through this check-in process, movements can be tracked within the area as well as tracking human interactions and surface interactions. If there is a case of infection, it is then easy to go through data to highlight anyone through the check-in process that should be aware and reaching out to them weeks after they have visited the area.

Viana a product by meldCX is a vision AI solution that allows you to measure how people interact in physical spaces to allow real-time data insights of those who enter your environment.  

3. Antimicrobial Protection on touchscreens

With hospitals being high-traffic areas, having regular cleaning procedures of public areas in place is essential to ensure safety. Vision AI can not only monitor human activity and help to automate other procedures, but it can also keep track of hand-to-surface interactions.

By utilizing powerful vision AI cameras, interactions can be consistently monitored and capture data. Once a set threshold of touches is met, notifications can be sent to a cleaning crew to properly clean and sanitize touchscreen devices. meldCX SAMi* (Surface Awareness Management Intelligence) offers this technology to provide an extra level of protection.  

Interested in learning more about how Vision AI Solutions from meldCX? Book a demo with one of our experts.

This article is an installment of our Future Vision series, where we tackle insights on Vision AI disruption across industries.

*meldCX has a pending provisional application, Australian Provisional Patent Application 2020901795. meldCX SAMi™ is our proprietary technology that utilizes touch-enabled devices and computer vision solutions to ensure cleaning compliance of surfaces.