Bodytrak: early-detection of infectious diseases in industrial and front-line workers

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Heat stress is a major issue for industrial workers operating in warm climates and/or wearing protective clothing (PPE). Economic costs due to heat illness are £504 on average per worker annually. At Inova, we developed Bodytrak(r), an innovative remote monitoring system used to acquire vital signs in real-time. From a small in-ear device, core body temperature and heart rate are continuously measured and transmitted to the Bodytrak cloud platform to display vital signs/alerts on a real-time dashboard.Covid-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020 by WHO. The impact to industrial organisations, such as production plants, refineries, logistics and constructions firms has been a reduction in revenue due to economic slowdown, but also a reduction in productivity output due to cases of Covid-19 and the requirement for social distancing requiring fewer workers on site. Employers have to balance worker welfare with reducing economic impact and have been investing in technology which claims to provide early detection of Covid-19, e.g. thermal cameras, but MHRA reported that these products are not reliable since they measure skin temperature not CBT. Further, temperature alone is not adequate in providing a reliable assessment.This proposal seeks to expand the functionality of the Bodytrak in-ear solution to measure additional vital signs to automatically detect Covid-19 (and other infectious diseases), particularly for industrial and front-line workers who would wear the device routinely. The addressable market currently represents £8.35Bn globally (£476m UK) (2019), with growth rate 10-42%, and serviceable market £135m.