Examinetics, an occupational health services provider, announced this week a strategic investment and marketing agreement with Kenzen, the creator of wearable devices designed to reduce workplace injuries. The investment amount was not disclosed.

WHAT IT DOES

The Kenzen device is worn on the upper arm and continuously monitors core body temperature, heart rate, and activity levels and tracks the worker microclimate, including the total milliliters lost per hour.

The data collected integrates into a mobile platform that has dashboards for each user, team and for the whole company. That way, employees can be empowered to monitor their own metrics and take breaks when the app notifies them a physiological indicator has reached a dangerous level.

Managers can use the team or enterprise dashboard to get a better idea of broad safety trends, giving them the ability to aggregate, anonymize and analyze data on a wider scale.

Kenzen’s device is designed for frontline workers, from nurses and emergency responders to coal miners and construction workers. Its mission is to keep employees working in hazardous environments safe

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kenzen is also currently building a machine learning illness-detection system. It takes baseline health data, compares it to the continually collected data, looks for deviations and alerts users.

WHAT IT’S FOR

Along with the investment, the companies have begun a marketing agreement where Examinetics will share the Kenzen device with its clients. Examinetics is a part of Freedom 3 Capital’s portfolio.

“As a leader in the field, we have a responsibility to bring our clients new and emerging solutions that we believe advance their employee health and safety goals,” said Paul Fenaroli, the president and CEO of Examinetics, in a statement. “With over 3,000 clients nationwide, we have the reach and access to health and safety executives in substantially every industrial sector.”

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Kenzen also recently began a trial with Garney Construction, a Kansas City-based water and wastewater pipeline construction company, to test the devices at 10 worksites across the U.S.

Frontline healthcare workers are currently facing a myriad of health risks, from possible COVID-19 exposure to exhaustion and burnout, as well as mental health concerns such as anxiety, stress, depression and loneliness.

The pandemic has reminded businesses just how important their employees’ health is to the overall wellbeing of the business.

Last spring, as companies were beginning to bring their employees back to work, Zebra Technologies, VitalTech and Fitbit all released tools to keep workers healthy.

More recently, U.K.-based employee health monitoring service Well.Me partnered with Bupa to expand employee health-tracking in U.K. workplaces. The partnership allows employees to record various health and wellbeing metrics such as blood pressure, resting heart rate, BMI, exercise, nutrition and sleep. From there, the monitoring system identifies trends and suggests ways to make positive lifestyle changes.

ON THE RECORD

“The Kenzen solution is gaining momentum,” said Heidi Lehmann, the cofounder and chief commercial officer of Kenzen, in a statement. “This alliance with Examinetics will broaden the team of safety experts who can work closely with clients to train teams and onboard employees to the technology before work heats up this summer.”