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Features and benefits
In the workplace, heat stress monitors offer essential features and benefits for ensuring employee safety and well-being. An advanced heat-stress prevention system like Bodytrak focuses on individualised physiological responses, providing real-time monitoring of core body temperature, heart rate, and physiological strain. Issuing immediate alerts to the wearer and supervisor, when preset thresholds have been exceeded, plays a pivotal role in preventing heat-related illnesses and incidents. Moreover, heat stress monitoring supports regulatory compliance and reduces medical and legal costs relating to incidents, making it a valuable tool for creating a safer and more effective work environment. Additionally, access to automated reports via the Bodytrak Platform helps organisations identify trends to improve safety practices and enhance overall productivity. This solution is particularly important in industries and/or regions susceptible to heat stress challenges.
Core body temperature
Bodytrak is an in-ear solution that fits comfortably in the ear, taking an internal reading of the body’s temperature. Due to its proximity to the hypothalamus,the body’s temperature control organ, the ear is an excellent place to measure core body temperature (CBT) and heart rate. Nestled securely in the concha of the ear, Bodytrak is unaffected by abrupt changes in environmental conditions and movement, delivering consistent and accurate data unique to the wearer. The CBT data from Bodytrak is validated against the gastro-intestinal pill, showing a mean absolute error of 0.18°C. This ensures any early signs of heat stress can be reliably detected in a non-invasive way.
Sectors
Monitoring heat stress is critical for sectors where employees are exposed to challenging and extreme weather conditions, to ensure safety while optimising productivity. In mining, where underground and open-pit workers often face sweltering conditions, heat stress monitoring helps to proactively prevent heat-related incidents whilst maintaining workforce wellbeing. Physiological monitoring also benefits workers in manufacturing and production settings, where machinery and equipment radiate substantial heat. It enables immediate alerts and intervention, reducing the risk of accidents. In the oil and gas sector, where workers may face high temperatures and humidity during offshore drilling or refinery operations, heat stress monitoring is essential to protect lone workers and offer support in remote and isolated locations, therefore minimising the risk of costly medical evacuations.
While this highlights various sectors that can thrive when a solution like Bodytrak is implemented, many more sectors benefit from such a comprehensive solution. Monitoring an individual’s response to workplace stressors, such as escalating temperatures, helps organisations continuously manage and proactively protect their team to return home safely after each shift.
Integration with Bodytrak
As temperatures continue to increase each summer, heat-related illnesses are expected to rise. While the risks are often heightened during the summer months, certain industries such as foundries and smelting operations, mining exploration and bakeries are faced with heat stress issues all year round.
Relying on multiple devices to address different workplace hazards can be inefficient, costly, onerous for both users and supervisors and also time-consuming. Worse still, they are often not integrated, so monitoring and responding to issues is challenging, as is internal compliance and reporting. Overcoming these issues requires a single comprehensive approach.
Fortunately, Bodytrak is revolutionising the methodology to safety monitoring through one single wearable solution. Bodytrak proactively uses real-time data to protect employees against heat stress; however, the solution extends beyond heat stress, also keeping employees safe from incidents caused by fatigue and noise exposure. In addition to physiological monitoring, Bodytrak provides real-time alerts, geolocation and geofencing, a user activated alarm and automated reports.
FAQs
What is a heat stress monitor?
A heat stress monitor is a device used to monitor and measure various factors that contribute to heat stress in a workplace. Wearable heat stress monitoring devices are often small, lightweight devices worn by workers to monitor environmental conditions and their body temperature. There are several forms of wearable heat stress monitoring solutions that include wristbands, patches and smart clothing, with varying degrees of accuracy. Depending on the device, they measure various factors such as ambient temperature, radiant heat and relative humidity. More advanced technology, like Bodytrak, can monitor an individual’s physiological response to heat by measuring core body temperature (as opposed to skin temperature) and heart rate, to provide a more precise assessment of an individual’s response to increasing temperatures.
Learn more in our Wearable Heat Stress Monitoring Solution Guide.
How does a heat stress monitor work?
A wearable heat stress device typically uses sensors that can measure body or skin temperature, as well as the ambient temperature and humidity. While this was a positive shift for wearables, further innovation is now providing more accurate solutions. Read more.
What technologies are used in heat stress monitoring?
Various technologies are implemented for heat stress monitoring to assess and manage heat-related risks in different settings. These technologies include environmental temperature and humidity sensors, Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) monitors, personal heat stress monitors, infrared thermography, heat stress apps, heat stress index models, air quality monitors, heat stress management software, remote sensing technologies, and weather forecasting. They help measure environmental conditions, physiological responses, and other factors contributing to heat stress, making it possible to provide warnings, recommendations, and effective risk mitigation in scenarios ranging from outdoor and recreational activities to industrial and occupational environments. With technology continuously evolving it’s important organisations select the right solution for the applications required as this can impact effectiveness and efficiency.
What is the most accurate way to measure heat stress?
For industrial workers, the most accurate approach to measure heat stress is through physiological monitoring that takes into account core body temperature as well as heart rate. Monitoring core body temperature provides a more precise measure to the body’s response, less affected by external temperatures and other variables. Bodytrak, a comprehensive smart safety solution, uses a wearable in-ear device to provide real-time data on an individual’s physiological responses to workplace stressors, including environmental heat, offering a more personalised and accurate assessment of their heat stress level.
Find out how modern technology and real-time data analytics can help organisations manage the risk of heat stress and proactively prevent heat-related illness.