KENZEN, the developer of physiological monitoring technologies, has added two features to its smart PPE system for monitoring workers’ heat risk. It’s now possible to track the heat susceptibility and sweat rate of individuals -- key indicators for detecting/preventing heat-related stress, injury, and fatality risk of workers in hot environments.
The Kenzen system calculates heat susceptibility of a worker and then classifies that information as low, moderate, or high heat-risk. Kenzen’s proprietary algorithm determines the person’s heat-risk category by evaluating his/her medical or physical conditions, physical fitness, heat-acclimatization status, history of heat injury and illness, medications, chronic illnesses, and age. The classification does not reveal personal information or reasons why someone is in a particular heat risk category; it is only used to help supervisors monitor and manage people according to their individual heat susceptibility.
“This new feature tells managers which workers to monitor closely on hot days, and when and how to alter an individual’s schedule or workload,” said Nicole Moyen, vice president of research and development at Kenzen.
Kenzen also has a new sweat-rate monitoring feature that uses a worker’s information and physiological data to calculate and predict his or her sweat rate, in liters per hour. A manager can view an individual’s sweat rate on the Kenzen analytics dashboard, which also indicates how much water that person needs to drink each hour to stay hydrated. The data eliminates the guesswork for keeping workers safely hydrated, and makes the Kenzen PPE system an even more valuable planning tool. Now managers can bring enough water to the worksite to hydrate their teams sufficiently based on each individual’s sweat rate and the predicted environmental conditions that day. Kenzen’s proprietary sweat-rate feature gives a hydration plan that is accurate within one quarter of a liter (1 cup of water), so that every worker will know the specific amount of water they need to drink that day to stay safe.
Kenzen devices worn by workers contain sensors that monitor, in real-time, an individual’s physiological responses. The worker is warned when their core temperature is too high and they are in danger of a heat-related injury or illness via a smart phone app and a device vibration. Managers have a corresponding app that alerts them when a worker needs an intervention to stop work, rest, and hydrate, and a second alert for when it’s safe to return to work. EHS leaders use the Kenzen analytics dashboard to make individual, team or enterprise-wide decisions to minimize heat-related injury and illnesses across their worksite by looking at aggregated data across weeks to months.
This summer, Kenzen has a rental program for companies to deploy the technology quickly, with packages of 10, 20, and 50 devices. The program includes the monitoring app for managers and can be rented for a two-month period online at store.kenzen.com, where training videos provide instructions for use and deployment. Learn more at www.Kenzen.com.