Researchers around the world are exploring the uses and benefits of thermal imaging cameras and infrared cameras in healthcare diagnosis, medicine and security. Thermal imaging cameras have proven their mettle in different industries and their efficiency is hidden from none.
By analyzing images captured by infra red cameras, researchers and medical practitioners can gather information on the vascular activity and metabolism of patients. All anomalies are captured and transmitted in the camera for your medical practitioner to note and study.
Thermal imaging cameras are also used to study a number of diseases, where skin temperature or body temperature can hint toward inflammation of underlying tissues due to an irregularity within body processes.
Additionally, besides being a handful with diagnosis and medication of the human body, thermal imaging cameras can also prove to be equally efficient when it comes to hospital security. These cameras put an end to major problems regarding security inside healthcare facilities and allow medical practitioners and hospital management to breathe a much needed sigh of relief.
In this article we look at and dissect all applications of thermal imaging cameras in healthcare. These cameras have multiple purposes and have redefined the way healthcare facilities operate from diagnosis and treatment of patients to ensuring security within the premises.
Managing Security Inside Healthcare Facilities
Thermal imaging cameras have shown plenty of potential when it comes to managing security inside healthcare facilities. This is made possible through the following means:
Effective Monitoring Without Privacy Violation
When it comes to looking after and monitoring patients, their privacy concerns are just as important as their wellbeing. No patient wants to be spied on, as they meet their relatives and spend their 24 hours of the day inside a hospital. However, hospital management have to make sure that things don’t go out of control, and that patients are duly monitored for security reasons.
With the use of thermal imaging cameras, hospitals can apply the best security solutions without disturbing the privacy of their patients. Hospital staff can install thermal cameras in rooms to monitor patients without disturbing patient privacy. Thermal cameras also comply with the regulations set by HIPPA, which is why hospitals are more prone to using them of late.
The output from thermal imaging cameras can be combined with analytics in the form of AI to alert hospital staff in the case of an anomaly. Adverse patient behavior is usually considered an anomaly.
Ensuring Efficiency of Heating Systems
Thermal imaging cameras can also be used within healthcare facilities to detect heating issues coming from radiators and other machinery. Thermal imaging cameras monitor the heat dissipated by machinery to make sure that there are no unnecessary toxins in the air, and that the heating mechanism works without any problems as such.
Patient comfort inside hospitals is also linked to the presence of heat dissipated by different machinery. Thermal cameras can detect heat related problems in the entire area rather than just in one specific area.
Reliable Analytics
You can use thermal imaging cameras together with different methods of analytics to increase the efficiency of your heat management mechanism. The chances of a false alarm with thermal imaging cameras are limited, which is why you won’t have to be concerned about that.
These settings make your thermal imaging cameras ideal for hospitals and healthcare facilities. With built-in software settings, hospital staff will be alerted whenever motion or distress is caught by the thermal imaging cameras. These cameras hence allow staff members to quickly analyze situations and come up with a fight or flight response in a given situation.
Increased Staff Response
Continuing from what we mentioned above, thermal imaging cameras can also help increase the staff’s response to a medical emergency. It is a given fact that hospital staff members need to be on their feet so that they can respond quickly to emergencies without wasting another second. Thermal imaging is hence made a cost-effective solution due to their stringent analytics and the fact that it allows staff members to avert dangers.
Patients are also monitored and any anomaly in their room is treated with utmost care and attention. Heat cameras alert hospital staff whenever something out of the usual happens.
Thermal Imaging Cameras for Diagnosing Diseases
Thermal imaging cameras also have multiple applications in the diagnosis of diseases and other conditions.
Relieving Pain
Infrared cameras or thermal imaging cameras have shown great potential when it comes to detecting inflammation in the joints. This has been confirmed by multiple researchers and medical experts, as they use thermal imaging as a means to capture inflammation across joints in the human body.
Thermal imaging cameras also have great potential when it comes to diagnosing and detecting muscular sports injuries. Inflammation suffered on damaged muscles is prone to generate heat, which can be recorded on thermal imaging cameras.
Capturing Infectious Diseases
Capturing infectious diseases is another area where thermal imaging technology can come in useful. Thermal imaging cameras can efficiently assess and record a skin infection known as tungiasis. Tungiasis is an infection causes by flea bites. The fleas bury deep inside the upper dermis of your skin to feed on the blood vessels in your body.
Thermal imaging cameras work well to record the infection and to capture the heat being released by the infection. The temperature around a wound or lesion caused by skin infections is expected to be higher than the temperature around the rest of the body. The technique can come in handy for finding out hidden infections that would otherwise be harder to spot for the naked eye.
Thermal imaging cameras have shown their potential in all aspects of healthcare, and it is only a matter of time before these cameras are used in a more profound manner within healthcare facilities.
