by KENZEN | Mar 23, 2021 | Announcement, Data Modeling, Heat Injuries, heat stress, In The News, Press Release, Smart PPE, Wearable Tech, Worksite Safety
KENZEN LAUNCHES DATA DASHBOARD THAT ANALYZES SAFETY AND PRODUCTIVITY OF WORKERS IN HOT AND HUMID CONDITIONS
NEW YORK CITY (March 23, 2021) – Kenzen has launched a data and analytics dashboard, the latest component of its smart PPE connected worker solution. The dashboard captures workers’ core body temperature (the greatest predictor of heat stress and illness), productivity, and microclimates caused by clothing under hot and humid working conditions.
Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) managers and company leaders can now have a data-driven overview of work sites, both real time and retrospectively, to evaluate heat risk information by location and job role. The analysis consists of tens of thousands of data points collected per worker per day from the Kenzen wearable which tracks physiological factors including core temperature and heart rate. The Kenzen system uniquely enables companies to identify and address challenges and opportunities related to work in hot and humid conditions. The information allows them to manage risk and improve processes to keep workers safer and more productive.
Last year, Kenzen unveiled the monitoring device and its complimentary mobile app that alerts workers when they are at risk of heat stress and illness and when to stop work, rest, and return to work safely. The hardware and app work together to feed data to the real-time dashboard for supervisors to monitor their teams proactively and intervene when necessary.
Kenzen’s new analytics dashboard allows senior managers, who on average are responsible for 10 teams of 10 people each day, to dig deeper into the data and have a holistic view across worksites and teams. The dashboard provides insight into how various environments affect workers and uses the information to guide management in the implementation of changes to keep workers safer while optimizing productivity. Actionable feedback enables tailoring of work/rest schedules and identification of PPE clothing with the least impact on worker performance.
The complete Kenzen solution integrates the company’s commitment to personal data privacy; only workers can view the details of their personal health information and safety managers and other EHS leaders only see what’s necessary to keep the worker safe.
“The latest tool in the Kenzen connected worker solution comes just in time for a summer that’s expected to be one of the most extreme on record,” said Heidi Lehmann, Kenzen co-founder and chief commercial officer. Lehmann adds that, for every 10-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature, there is a 393 percent increase in hospitalizations for heat exposure. “Now companies have the power to predict and prevent heat-related injuries and deaths and manage productivity at the same time.”
About Kenzen
Founded in 2016, Kenzen is the premier physiological monitoring platform to keep workforces safe from heat, fatigue, and over exertion on the job while providing data driven insights to maintain productivity. For more information about heat stress and how to integrate the system into a safety plan, visit Kenzen.com.
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by Bitsy Foster | Jan 2, 2020 | Heat Injuries, Worksite Safety
Water is essential to our body. It helps to digest foods, makes up a large portion of our blood volume, helps maintain our blood pressure, is a large component of our muscles (~80% of your muscles are water!), and helps to regulate our body temperature. Not only can dehydration impact your mood, but it can also impact your work in the heat.
Working in the heat is already hard enough mentally and physically. But if you’re dehydrated on top of that, you will experience even greater physiological strain, and you might notice that your mood and cognition are worse too. This combination of being dehydrated AND working in the heat will increase the odds of accidents at work, decrease your performance, and increase your risk for heat-releated injuries and illnesses. But don’t worry, there is an easy fix for this…. drinking water!
So how do you stay hydrated throughout the work day?
- Start by drinking a glass of water when you wake up in the morning. Starting your day hydrated will help to keep your core temperature lower by allowing for your body to sweat adequately (and get rid of heat) throughout the work day.
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If possible, carry a water bottle with you throughout the day to make drinking water easy and accessible. If it’s not cold water, don’t worry about it. Although it may not be pleasant to drink, warm water won’t necessarily make you hotter.
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Don’t limit your water intake and always drink when you’re thirsty.
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NIOSH & OSHA recommend drinking ~8 oz water (1 cup) every 15-20 minutes. But may not be the correct amount for you. For a more accurate hydration plan, you’ll need to calculate your normal sweat rate. Kenzen can help you & your team with this. But for right now, you can weigh yourself before vs. after your workday to figure out exactly how much water you lost (through sweating).
Rule of thumb: you need to drink 20 oz. (about 1.5 water bottles) of water per pound of body weight lost through sweating.
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Limit alcohol intake. Alcohol dehydrates you and impacts your body’s ability to properly regulate body temperature.
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Good news: if you regularly consume caffeine, it will not impact your hydration or your ability to work in the heat. So don’t worry about having your 2-3 cups of coffee or tea each day.
How can you check to make sure you’re staying hydrated?
Your urine color (in the toilet bowl) should be a lemonade color (or lighter). This is the easiest way to check that you’re hydrated.
If you’re using a porta-potty where it’s hard to see your urine color in the toilet bowl, you can count how many times each day that you have to use the restroom.
If you’re urinating at least 7 times per day, you’re hydrated. Any less than 5 times per day and you’re likely dehydrated. This would mean that you’re urinating at least once every 2 hours or so.
Three tricks to increase your water absorption:
- Lightly salting your foods (especially during the first two weeks you’re working in the heat) can help your body to absorb more water.
- Drinking fluids with electrolytes (especially sodium) will help to absorb the water you drink. Just watch those sugars in the drinks- you don’t need them!
- Your body can only absorb water at a certain speed… what that means is that you need to pace yourself in drinking the water back after working hard in the heat. You can’t just “chug” a bunch of water at the end of the work day— you will just urinate it out.
Rule of thumb: your body can absorb ~8 oz. (half of a water bottle) every 15 minutes, so try to pace your water drinking to that rate.
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REFERENCES:
- Armstrong, Lawrence E., et al. “Urinary indices of hydration status.” International journal of sport nutrition 4.3 (1994): 265-279.
- Kenefick, Robert W., et al. “Quantification of chromatographic effects of vitamin B supplementation in urine and implications for hydration assessment.” Journal of Applied Physiology 119.2 (2015): 110-115.
- Burchfield, J. M., et al. “24-h Void number as an indicator of hydration status.”European journal of clinical nutrition 69.5 (2015): 638-641.
- Tucker, M. A., et al. “Reliability of 24-h void frequency as an index of hydration status when euhydrated and hypohydrated.” European journal of clinical nutrition (2016).
- Ely, Brett R., et al. “Hypohydration and acute thermal stress affect mood state but not cognition or dynamic postural balance.” European journal of applied physiology 113.4 (2013): 1027-1034.
- Armstrong, Lawrence E., et al. “Mild dehydration affects mood in healthy young women.” The Journal of nutrition 142.2 (2012): 382-388.
- Shirreffs, Susan Margaret, et al. “Post-exercise rehydration in man: effects of volume consumed and drink sodium content.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 28.10 (1996): 1260-1271.
- Bain AR, Lesperance NC, Jay O. Body heat storage during physical activity is lower with hot fluid ingestion under conditions that permit full evaporation. Acta Physiol (Oxf). 2012;206(2): 98–108.
by Bitsy Foster | Nov 11, 2019 | Heat Injuries, Smart PPE, Worksite Safety
Sweating is the primary way that we cool ourselves off when our temperature starts to get too high.
But if your sweat isn’t evaporating or being wicked away (and is just dripping off of you), then it’s not actually cooling you down. Your body temperature will continue to increase – now much faster – and you won’t be able to work as long.
This is often why working in a hot AND humid environment feels a lot worse than in a hot-dry environment. Aside from being harder to cool your body down, your sweat does not evaporate as well in a humid environment. Sweat begins dripping off of you because the surrounding air molecules simply can’t hold any more water.
Heavy uniforms (like PPE) also prevent sweat from evaporating. Because you are unable to cool down, your body temperature will continue to rise. And, your body temperature will rise at an even faster rate when wearing heavy PPE.
5 Tips to Stay Cool on the Job
- Use an electric fan to stay cool and help the sweat evaporate
- Towel your skin dry as much as possible. Or, consider wiping your sweat off and away from your body. Pooled, or dripping sweat left on your body can actually decrease your sweat rate and cause you to overheat during work!
- Take frequent breaks and seek shade or covered areas.
- If possible, remove any extra clothing/uniform that may be preventing the sweat from evaporating during rest breaks.
- Drink plenty of pure water to replace the sweat (water) you’re losing from your body.
If you’d like the Kenzen team to help train your workforce on the importance of heat safety, schedule an on-site OSHA heat safety training session and gain early access to Kenzen Patch.
Learn more here »
