Since 2020, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had a substantial impact on all community sectors worldwide, particularly the healthcare sector. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at risk of COVID-19 infection due to occupational exposure to infectious patients, visitors, and staff. Contact tracing of close physical interaction is an essential control measure, especially in hospitals, to prevent onward transmission during an outbreak event. In this article, we propose an Internet of Thing-based contact tracing system for subject identification, interaction tracking, and data transmission in hospital wards. The system, based on Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) devices, tracks the duration of interactions between different HCWs, and the time each HCW spends within the patient rooms using additional information from proximity sensors in the hallway or on the door frame of the patient room. The collected data are transferred via long-range (LoRa) wireless technology and further analyzed to inform infection prevention activities. The suggested system’s performance is evaluated in a COVID-19 patient ward with both standard and negative pressure isolation rooms, and the current system’s capabilities and future research prospects are briefly discussed.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 病房中基于物联网的自主接触者追踪平台

自 2020 年以来，冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 大流行对全球所有社区部门产生了重大影响，尤其是医疗保健部门。由于职业接触感染患者、访客和工作人员，医护人员 (HCW) 面临感染 COVID-19 的风险。密切身体互动的接触者追踪是一项重要的控制措施，特别是在医院，以防止在暴发事件期间继续传播。在本文中，我们提出了一种基于物联网的接触者追踪系统，用于医院病房中的对象识别、交互追踪和数据传输。该系统基于低功耗蓝牙 (BLE) 设备，可跟踪不同医护人员之间互动的持续时间，以及每个 HCW 在病房内花费的时间，使用来自走廊或病房门框上的接近传感器的附加信息。收集的数据通过远程 (LoRa) 无线技术传输，并进一步分析以告知感染预防活动。建议系统的性能在具有标准和负压隔离室的 COVID-19 患者病房中进行评估，并简要讨论了当前系统的功能和未来的研究前景。