Thermometer

So, I finally bought the fancy Kinsa crowdsourcing thermometer that Rachel Maddow recommended at the beginning of the pandemic. (No fear. I am fine if the Gubment watches my temperature for the Greater Good.) I promptly took my temperature, and a then few days later I got an email from a nurse.

See below.

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HEADS UP

Hello!

Kinsa’s Nurse Blake here, writing to you from my living room in Colorado. I’m the clinician that writes all of the medical guidance you’ll see in your Kinsa app and in additional guidance emails. I’m writing to introduce myself so you aren’t alarmed if I reach out to you if someone in your household falls ill.

With two now-tween girls of my own and a background in a hospital NICU, pediatric and adult units, I’m all too familiar with the panic that sets in when a family member - especially a little one - is sick.

'Is this serious? Should I be worried? Is it safe to care for this from home, or should I talk to my doc or go to the hospital? What can I do to keep myself or my child comfortable?'

Your mind just spins and spins.

Think of Kinsa as a tiny nurse in your pocket, there to quiet the panic and answer these common questions.

If you take a feverish temperature or enter a symptom, you have age-specific medical guidance at your fingertips. All this medical guidance is vetted against the American Academy of Pediatrics / American Academy of Family Practice, then triple-checked by Kinsa's on-staff doctors.

To supplement the guidance you see in the app, I’ll likely also follow up with you via email with a more detailed care guide to keep you (or your little one) comfortable at home. 

While I don’t hope to speak to you anytime soon 😉 , if anyone in your household falls ill - I’m here for you!

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I am FULLY freaked out. Am I reading this right? She'll be monitoring our temperatures? In case we get fevers? And then sending me an email? A stranger? I signed up to have my temperature crowdsourced. I didn't sign up for a FRIEND who says she'll be watching me AND MY CHILDREN.

Comments

[KC]

Almost certainly, what "she" sends without you contacting her back is prefab content programmed to be delivered when there are specific thermometer results (first time taking a temperature, high or low temperature, time between temperature readings, etc.).

So maybe less creepy, but more annoying? Not sure..

[TheQueen]

KC - if Nurse Blake is a bot they are really going all out to suck us in: https://kinsahealth.com/post/an-interview-with-nurse-blake

[KC]

I would assume she is not a bot exactly, but that Kinsa gave the nurse a list of situations to compose email replies for, and that those emails are being sent to everybody who fits those events. One nurse, who wrote one set of emails triggered by thermometer events... and then those emails, as best the computers can tell, are sent to the correct however many thousand people as though they are individual emails To You.

(I mean: it's somewhere slightly past autorespond and email templates, but not very far past?)

[TheQueen]

KC - I am very tempted to run the thermometer under hot water to see the Email I get.

[KC]

"Sorry to mess with your crowdsourcing, just trying to check my roast was done!"

[TheQueen]

KC - now you make me wonder how high a digital thermometer will go.
"Electronic thermometers are relatively easy to use and measure temperatures from 31.6°-42.2° C in predictive mode and from 26.7°-42.2° C in continuous mode.18 The low range available in continuous mode makes this device useful for measuring temperature in hypothermic patients. Electronic thermometers are portable and can be used to measure oral, axillary, and rectal temperatures."
So 80 degrees F to 107 F. Not good for a roast. But still doesn't it seem they must have done some work to put in those limits? Perhaps it's error trapping. If there's a glitch better to display 107 degrees and not 120 degrees.

[KC]

Sometimes there are mechanical limits (see also: some mercury oral thermometers, which simply didn't give the space/mercury to go above 110F), but yes. If they build in limits, then if it measured 120, I'd prefer it say "ERROR" than 107, though. (like I'd prefer the thermometer to just say "LOW" rather than "96.0", which appears to be the lowest our thermometer goes - it just stays at that number indefinitely unless it can creep up to 96.3, at which time it beeps, sometimes up to ten minutes later, which suggests to me that yes, my oral temperature was probably below 96.3, but now it is at 96.3, hooray.)

Anyway. Sometimes things are mechanical; sometimes they are programmed in; but if it errors, I want it to ERROR rather than silently failing, personally.

[TheQueen]

KC - I had a 95.3 recently, so the low limit would vary per person.

[KC]

My "won't post low numbers" thermometer is just a grocery store digital thermometer for humans, not a kinsa. I'm glad the Kinsa will allow us to be cold-blooded without denying it. :-)

[TheQueen]

KC - well, the low end might be below 95.