Devices, systems, and methods for assessing facility compliance with infectious disease guidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Facility managers face challenges in assessing compliance with infectious disease guidelines to reduce airborne disease transmission, as existing systems lack effective methods to monitor and quantify the necessary conditions and equipment needed to mitigate risks.
Innovation Solution
A system and method utilizing sensing devices to monitor conditions such as humidity, CO2 levels, occupancy, and particulate matter, determining compliance parameters, assigning scores, and displaying dashboards to facilitate understanding and identification of necessary equipment installations for improved risk mitigation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If multiple sensing devices are deployed to monitor various conditions (humidity, CO2, occupancy, particulate matter), then the ability to assess compliance with infectious disease guidelines is improved, but the device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the compliance assessment into multiple independent measurement components, each handled by a dedicated sensing device (humidity sensor, CO2 sensor, occupancy sensor, particulate matter sensor). Each sensor independently monitors a specific parameter, and the controller aggregates these separate measurements to determine overall compliance with infectious disease guidelines.
Solution Approach 2:
The controller serves multiple functions: it receives data from various types of sensing devices, processes compliance parameters for different infectious disease guidelines, generates scores, and provides recommendations. This multi-functional approach consolidates what could be separate systems into a single unified platform.
2Reliability
If comprehensive compliance parameters are calculated based on multiple sensed conditions, then the reliability of infectious disease risk assessment is improved, but the difficulty of detecting and measuring increases
Solution Approach 1:
The controller acts as an intermediary that receives raw data from multiple sensing devices and transforms it into meaningful compliance parameters. It processes the relationship between different sensed conditions (humidity, CO2, occupancy, particulate matter) and infectious disease guidelines, calculating compliance scores that represent the overall risk assessment without requiring direct measurement of the complex relationship itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback to facility managers through compliance scores and recommendations, showing how current environmental conditions compare to infectious disease guidelines. This feedback loop enables continuous monitoring and adjustment of facility conditions to maintain compliance.
3Ease of operation
If the system provides detailed individual scores for each compliance parameter, then the ease of operation and understanding is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses visual indicators (such as color-coded scores or traffic light indicators) to represent compliance status for each parameter and overall compliance. This transforms complex numerical compliance parameters into easily interpretable visual feedback, allowing facility managers to quickly understand compliance status without analyzing raw sensor data.
Solution Approach 2:
The compliance assessment is segmented into individual scores for each parameter (humidity compliance, CO2 compliance, occupancy compliance, particulate matter compliance) plus an overall compliance score. This segmentation allows facility managers to understand specific areas of compliance and non-compliance without being overwhelmed by a single complex metric.
Data Source
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AI summary
Devices, methods, and systems for monitoring and/or assessing compliance with infectious disease guidance for reducing infectious disease transmissions are described herein. The systems may include sensing devices at or within a facility and computing devices to compare data based on outputs from the sensing devices with guidance and/or recommendations for mitigating infectious disease transmission. Various compliance parameters may be identified as being relevant to the guidelines and measurable with outputs from the sensing devices. Various compliance parameters may be identified as being relevant to the guidelines, but not measurable with outputs from the sensing devices. The compliance parameters may be individually scored or scored in groups, including the compliance parameters not measureable with outputs from the sensing devices, and a score relative to a facility or group of facilities may be provided. The scores may be presented to via a dashboard.