Fisher & Paykel Healthcare buys CovidCards for 4000 staff

Friday, 29 January 2021

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare staff are asked to wear CovidCards and face masks on site to minimise the chance of a disruption to production of its respiratory aids which are saving lives around the world.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has provided CovidCards to all its 4000 New Zealand staff so it can trace close contacts quickly if any of its staff are infected with Covid.

Vice president Marcus Driller said the company needed to go “above and beyond” to reduce the risk of a manufacturing disruption because of its role in helping treat Covid around the world.

“We are the leading provider of two of the primary respiratory therapies that are used to treat Covid and anything that stopped production at this time would impact patients globally,” he said.

The company is the most valuable Kiwi firm on the NZX, worth just under $20 billion, and has seen sales jump 73 per cent over the last nine months due to Covid-related demand.

Driller said the Bluetooth cards, which it is calling Care Cards, had proved a success and it also intended to provide them to 2000 staff at its factory in Mexico and some of its overseas distribution centres.

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The cards were designed by Hamilton engineering firm Virscient which was last year involved in a bid to persuade the Ministry of Health to roll them out to all New Zealanders to assist manual contact tracing.

That not-profit initiative, which was backed by industry leaders including Trade Me founder Sam Morgan, Animation Research boss Sir Ian Taylor and Navman founder Sir Peter Maire, lapsed in August.

The Cabinet elected to conduct a $1m trial, mainly to see how people would feel about wearing such cards while the Health Ministry put its faith in the Bluetooth function in its Covid Tracer app.

CovidCards appear to have been better received by the private sector.

The devices send out encrypted codes via Bluetooth that can later be used to identify a cardholder in the event that another cardholder they have into close contact with is diagnosed with Covid.

In addition to supplying Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Virscient has been selling cards to customers through Wellington-based contact tracing specialist SaferMe.

SaferMe chief executive Clint Van Marrewijk said it had sold thousands of the devices, including to insurance companies and schools in the United States.

He expected orders for between 100,000 and 300,000 during the three months to the end of March.

Fisher & Paykel vice president Marcus Driller says there have been no technical issues with its CovidCards, which it has branded Care Cards.

Virscient also helped design an award-winning Bluetooth card for last year’s London marathon.

Chief executive Dean Armstrong said the cards Fisher & Paykel Healthcare was using were essentially the same as the ones it would have supplied the Ministry of Health.

“Fundamentally it is the same privacy-preserving, scalable technology, but with some modifications such as interfaces to accommodate the needs of businesses.”

Driller said Fisher & Paykel Healthcare went through a “pretty thorough process” selecting the cards, validating that they didn’t miss close contacts or report many contacts as being close when they weren’t.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s sales have jumped as hospitals have turned to non-invasive ventilators to treat many Covid patients.

“We have hundreds of people in a manufacturing area and you want to be sure you are identifying the right contacts.”

It had considered using a smartphone based solution but rejected that for several reasons, including the variability of devices and the fact it would not have been possible to see they were being used.

The cards are issued to contractors and visitors to its sites, as well as staff.

“We just wanted something that was easy to use and that we could validate everyone had, unlike a phone in a pocket.”

Staff on its manufacturing lines also weren’t allowed smartphones for health and safety reasons, he said.

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare wanted a contact tracing aid “that was easy to use and that we could validate everyone had”.

The cards were “pretty smart” in that they allowed over-the-air updates to their firmware via Bluetooth if needed, but there had been no technical issues requiring that, he said.

Fisher & Paykel hadn’t been sure how staff would respond to its requirement they wear the cards, but there hadn’t been any complaints, Driller said.

“We have been really pleased how people have taken to it.”

Staff wear the card attached to their ‘ID card’ on a lanyard or on their belt.

Driller wouldn’t comment on whether he would have liked to have seen CovidCards used as a nationwide tool to improve contact tracing, saying that wasn’t the company’s area of expertise.

“We think they are a great solution for us and work very well.

“There are different considerations obviously for a whole-of-population roll-out,” he said.

Armstrong also didn’t want to discuss whether he would still like to see CovidCards used as a nationwide tracing aid.

Virscient’s core business is providing wireless engineering services to overseas firms, including the likes of Samsung and chip giant Qualcomm

Armstrong expected CovidCards would remain a small part of its overall business in financial terms even though “it turns out the technology works beautifully”.

“For us there has never been a big commercial driver. It was developed for the right reasons and it is neat to see it come to life,” he said.

“From a group perspective it is another bit of technology that had come out of Virscient and one that we think is solving an important problem.”