HOW USCANN ENABLED A REPUTABLE SCHOOL TO REOPEN OPERATIONS WITH AUTOMATED COVID-19 SCREENINGS
Resumption of Academic Sessions – A Case Study
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Customer
Our customer is a reputable public school which has a student teacher ratio of 20:1. In their search for a safe and automated thermal screening system during the pandemic, they approached DataChip, seeking an accurate and high-quality process for their school to ensure the safety of staff and students alike.
Owner
The Head and the administrators of the school wanted a hassle-free and accurate thermal screening process to ensure the highest safety for their premises as they wanted to resume academic sessions. They had to assure the parents of their students and the students themselves that they could return to campus and resume their academic and extracurricular activities without any fear of infection.
Problem Statement
About 68% of the students at the School were involved in creative pursuits as well as sports, which needed the regular practice. The pandemic made it impossible for many of the students to access the necessary equipment and space needed, but about 35% of them were also unwilling to return to campus until the situation is resolved. The school was unwilling to risk the safety of the children as well as that of the staff, especially for anyone with a pre-existing medical condition which is considered a risk factor. The school was also particularly concerned about the children causing community transmission to other adults at home and in the community. They were also worried about possible threat to anyone with conditions which were undiagnosed until that point.
The school was determined to make sure that they put all the necessary protective measures in place to minimize the risk of infection among the students.
- Their goal was to ensure the safety of all the staff, students, children and their families at home
- They were keen to reduce inefficiencies in their current process, which involved manual screening
- Reduce cost per entry per administrator from $375 per day at two separate entry points
- Time taken during manual screening is over a minute per student, which is eroding into their time at school and making all of them wait together in a small area, feeling threatened by their proximity to another person before they were screened
Safety from infection depended on invasive, time consuming, and expensive safety measures for the school which was why they were in urgent need of an easy-to-install and cost-effective temperature monitoring and testing solution to replace their invasive, time consuming and expensive safety measures for all.
Drivers
Installed uScann AI scanners at their two entry points.
Integrated with security doors.
Outcomes
uScann is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Driven Smart Temperature Scanner designed for autonomy. It is automated and doesn’t require human contact or supervision to work. The state-of-the-art AI monitoring system looks for optimal situations each microsecond to ensure the highest quality temperature results.
- Installed D-I-Y auto scanner device at both their entrances
- Activated an automatic alert email notification for their security administrator for any out of range temperatures recorded
- Automated an alert on the device when temperature was out of range for any person
- Reports were provided for the denial of entry for those who triggered any exceptions and were denied entry at the gate
- Linked their gate security system to the live temperature feed for opening the door when there was no exception on temperature threshold
Drivers
- Safely reopen the school and ensure that all the students and staff are comfortable and safe
- Reduce the high costs of ensuring safety without compromising any standards
- Need for easy-to-use, cost-effective temperature monitoring and testing solution
Project:
DataChip’s uScann is a smart thermal monitoring platform which uses complex algorithms based on a variety of environmental factors like ambient temperature, facial recognition, mask detection, obstructions, distance etc. on top of thermal scanner reading. Other products in the market simply rely on thermal scanner reading which may not be reliable as environmental conditions change. For example, body temperature of a healthy person varies during the day by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) with lower temperatures in the morning and higher temperatures in the late afternoon and evening.
uScann is the new normal and can screen everyone in a short time.
- Offers advanced facial recognition, even when wearing a mask, and helps to track each individual across the premises
- Flags anyone with irregular, high temperatures from within a distance of around 60 to 90 centimeters
- Performs a headcount and collates all the information from other uScann devices, placed at other entry points, on a centralized web portal
We customized uScann AI scanners and quickly personalized the system to their needs. We deployed the scanners to screen temperatures of the students, teachers and other visitors at the entry point, for anyone entering the premises. The scanners were integrated with both entry points to the premises.
Outcomes
When school opened, students, teachers coming in were not asked to get screened by a person holding an infrared thermometer. None of them needed to queue up in a line, not knowing which of them may get flagged and be petrified by the thought of being close to someone who might be carrying the virus without their own knowledge. Instead, they walked in to find themselves facing a no-contact scanner, which sent them through in a span of around two seconds and didn’t need them to stand close to another human being.
THE RESULTS
An immediate of almost 90% increase in efficiency and elimination of daily screening expenses, surpassing all expectations! The school completely eliminated the need for screening administrators reducing their daily screening costs to virtually $0.
- Enhanced the experience of all students and staff and offered them safety and security
- Increased attendance by 28% almost immediately
- Time taken for temperature screening per individual reduced from 45 seconds to just around 2 seconds
- No additional staff were needed to supervise the overall process with uScann’s automated screening and secure data collection on the cloud
- Unlike before, the school management also has complete oversight and tons of information to continue improving their safety processes
uScann pays for itself within a few days, while offering a number of additional benefits.
Qualitative
- Smart Temperature Monitoring Platform to screen students, staff and visitors
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven Thermal Scanner, Enterprise Ready and scalable
- Lightweight, Portable with DIY installation in minutes
- Easy to use management portal with customizable uScann APIs
- User and location-based security
- Multi-device configuration push
- More than just a simple temperature reading device
- Open, cloud native and extensible architecture with uScann add-ons
- Automatic alarm for subjects with high temperature
- A variety of alerts including on-screen notification, voice alert, alarm and email alerts
- Integrate with our webhooks technology to perform custom post-event activities
- Offers advanced reporting and analytics from a customer perspective
- Provides granular data by a specific location or group of locations
- Access to historical data for future contact tracing or compliance needs
- Deploy one Device or Multiple Devices to keep up with volume of entrants
- Add-on features such as People Counting, Protective Wear Checks, Restricted Area Checks, Visitor Management, Student/Staff Attendance Management and more
Enables easy integration with existing systems and provides custom workflows as required.
Benefits
- Contactless scans eliminate health risks with our contact-free, non-invasive, automated temperature checks unlike handheld manual temperature screenings
- No more stress and discomfort as screenings are ultrafast and take around 2 seconds unlike the time taken for manual screening where people wait around at a crowded entry point, with each screening taking up to 45 seconds
- Provides a great entry experience to students, staff, and guests without any human intervention while making them feel safe
- Scalable and connected devices make it easy to scan thousands of people, if needed
- Saves on costs of $375 per day or more for temperature screening to administer the entry on a single gate through an outsourced resource
- Measure temperatures with accuracy around 0.5 degrees