CAMDEN, S.C. — Smart thermometers are helping Midlands schools track illnesses and stop the spread of those illnesses through early detection.
At the Montessori School of Camden, students get their temperature checked everyday.
Typically students get their temperature checked at home by parents, but they go to see Nurse Teresa L’Heureux if they're not feeling well at school.
L’Heureux applied for the Kinsa School Health FLUency Program to get the free smart thermometers in Spring of 2020.
"It was hard to get thermometers and smart thermometers were cost prohibitive for a lot of families, and just having a company that would give us smart thermometers at a time when they were scarce was very helpful,” said L'Heureux.
They got the shipment right as COVID hit and sent the smart thermometers home to parents, which L’Heureux said was perfect timing.
“I was really, really grateful for a way for parents to check temperatures at home really easily and for us to be a community and communicate easily,” L'Heureux said.
School officials and parents are able to communicate through the free Kinsa app that tracks student temperatures and puts out important information about illnesses at school.
The thermometers connect to the app, so school officials and parents can stay in the know if a classroom is seeing elevated temperatures.
It gives moms like Felicia Melville, the heads up she needs about her second grader, Ben.
“Ben has periodic fever syndrome, so when he has a fever its helpful that I know ahead of time,” said Melville.
Melville said the smart thermometer helps them catch illness early and prevents them from spreading it to others. Plus, they can see if there are other cases in school, without seeing other people's personal information.
“It just makes us more aware of what’s going around,” the mom said.
The school nurse gave an example of how the app has recently helped them:
“We had a small outbreak of RSV, the respiratory syncytial virus, and our head of school quickly shut down the classroom that the outbreak was in and we were able to communicate that through the Kinsa app,” explained L'Heureux.
L’Heareux said without the free program, their small school wouldn’t be able to communicate as effectively with families or detect illnesses as early.
“I have this tiny, little budget and I’m always so grateful for any program that’s free,” she said.
About 50 elementary and middle schools across the Midlands have joined the program, which is funded by Lysol.