​The city of Helsingborg first out to use novel AI technology to screen body temperature trends

By using a unique technology based on thermal sensors in combination with novel AI, the city of Helsingborg in southern Sweden is first in the world to estimate trends of elevated body temperatures within a population. The technology aims at enabling a variety of efforts to improve public health, and also to explore if collection of aggregated body temperature estimates can provide an early warning of impending epidemics.

Fever provides an early and comparably accurate indication of an ongoing infectious disease in an individual. The ability to measure elevated body temperatures within an entire population may open up for new ways to warn society on impending epidemics.

- By using this AI solution, in combination with other available open data sources, we hope to improve our status reporting capabilities, both towards Local, Regional, and National authorities. We also aim to provide information for more informed decisions within our own crisis management organization, for example with regard to what information to communicate to the public or when to elevate the crisis level within healthcare. Likewise, the information may also be used for the opposite purpose, which may be to identify a declining disease trend or to verify that applied disease control measures are effective. It might even be used as an indicator on when currently applied restrictions can be relieved, says Elina Bratt, CSO, chief security officer at the city of Helsingborg.

The project has a planned duration of two years and is implemented by the city of Helsingborg as part of the H22 innovation framework, together with innovation company Spectronic Medical, real estate owner Wihlborgs and tech hub Get AI. The technology, called Epitrend, is a statistical tool developed by Spectronic Medical to detect trends of increasing body temperatures within a population. Thermal sensors installed at the Helsingborg central station measures body temperatures from a distance and generates temporal temperature statistics. All statistics are presented as trends and diagrams through a web portal, which is updated daily and is available as open data.

- Integrating this type of advanced AI directly within a sensor has not been possible until now. What makes Epitrend unrivaled is both its privacy centric design and that it enables direct measurement of temperature statistics within a population. Temperatures are detected as strictly anonymous datapoints within the sensor, which assures that the technology can never be used to monitor or follow individual persons. We believe our technology will serve an important role in the management and mitigation of many epidemic diseases, says Carl Siversson, CEO of Spectronic Medical.

- Typically, around 40 000 individuals transfer through Helsingborg central station every day. As property owner we are positive to the ability of identifying trends, such as the seasonal flu, in a safe and innovative way. Today, when everyone is somehow affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is of particular importance for us to find ways to keep the central station safe to our travelers, says Magnus Lambertsson, regional manager of Wihlborgs in Helsingborg.

- This project demonstrates why Helsingborg and its companies are in the forefront of innovation. There are always challenges with real life implementations of AI solutions, but when all parties come together in good faith, working to rapidly achieve a well-defined goal - the outcome is groundbreaking. This very important public health tool was rapidly installed and thanks to its innovative and safe technology, the personal integrity of the citizens is at no risk of being compromised. This makes me proud of our city and it raises the expectations on how thoughtful technology can improve the city even further in the future, says Joakim Jardenberg, CEO of Get AI. 

For more information:

Elina Bratt, CSO, chief security officer at the city of Helsingborg, elina.bratt@helsingborg.se

Carl Siversson, Carl Siversson, CEO of Spectronic Medical, carl.siversson@spectronic.se

Joakim Jardenberg, CEO of Get AI, joakim@getai.se

Innovation Helsingborg

www.spectronic.se/insights/