The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Food bank gets detector that screens temperatures
Barrier seen as an important innovation in effort to keep health care workers safe. Monitor may let East Pointbased nonprofit serve more people more quickly.
Georgia Tech graduate student Kentez Craig knew the perfect source for advice when working on a device to protect paramedics and health care workers from contracting the novel coronavirus from a patient.
His parents.
His father, Kenneth, has been a paramedic for 30 years. His mother, Jackie, is a retired paramedic who met her husband when they worked for the DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department.
The team — Craig, his classmates, faculty and Emory University doctors — created what’s been called a barrier protection device, an intubation box or an “Emo-Tech box” that is being used at Emory hospitals. Other metro Atlanta hospitals are considering using the equipment as well. The box, a clear, polycarbonate material device, allows medical workers to intubate a patient but still be shielded from any respiratory droplets that might infect the worker.
“I’m so impressed and so proud that (Kentez) would work on something that’s so needed,” said Kenneth Craig, 61, who works part-time at Eastside Medical Center in Snellville.
■ The box, a clear, polycarbonate device the size of a stove, allows medical workers to intubate a patient but still be shielded from any respiratory droplets that might infect the worker.
Most critically ill COVID-19 patients need breathing support. Intubation is the process of inserting a tube through the mouth and then into the airway. The tube is then connected to a ventilator, which pushes air into the lungs to deliver a breath to the patient.
Intubating a COVID-19 patient is dan
■ There are two holes, one for each arm, for the worker to treat a patient.
■ The device is collapsible, which the team wanted to do to make it easier to carry. gerous for health care workers because it brings them close to a patient’s mouth, which is constantly shedding the virus. Patients sometimes exhale or cough as the tube is inserted.
Early data suggest front-line health
If you are a volunteer or staffer at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, you may be better protected from the spread of COVID-19, thanks to a donation from a Chicago-based company.
Yates Enterprises recently donated a wall-mounted, noncontact infrared thermal detector that will screen for elevated temperatures as employees and volunteers enter the building. The monitor will be placed at the main entrance to the East Point-based nonprofit, which distributes food through more than 700 partner organizations in 29 counties across metro Atlanta and North Georgia.
“It certainly will help us prepare to be able to have a higher volume of people coming through our doors,” said Chief Operations Officer Stacey Koehnke. She hopes it will also give people peace of mind when they come to work or visit the nonprofit.
Gloves and masks are available for all employees to wear, and social distancing is strictly enforced.
“We want to make sure the community feels safe and the staff feels safe,” she said.
An elevated temperature is one of the early symptoms of COVID-19, although experts caution that some people are asymptomatic and still have the virus.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people to wear masks, frequently wash their hands or use sanitizer, and practice social distancing.
Currently about half of the ACFB’s 125-person staff is coming into the building. The rest are working remotely because of the pandemic.
Instead of the usual 100 or so volunteers that come daily, members of the National Guard are performing those duties as the nonprofit works on a reopening plan.
Temperatures are taken at the front desk with a hand-held thermometer.
The ACFB would like to acquire a second detector for another entrance