Rik Heller: Creator of welloStationX’s Non-Contact Temperature Screenings

As the world starts opening up again, businesses are scrambling to find ways to keep workers and customers safe from COVID-19. Enter welloStationX, an FDA-cleared, non-contact body temperature screening device that day cares, hospitals, prisons, clinics and offices already were using before the outbreak.

The way welloStationX works is the person stands in front of the device and if it detects the person has an elevated temperature, an on-screen notification will pop up. The person’s date and time-stamped photograph then will be emailed to the staff in the facility. If the person’s temperature is normal, the station will print an “I’m wello” sticker for them to wear.

The station uses infrared technology and multiple sensors to determine who has an elevated temperature. The device was used in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak to screen hundreds of students at five Dallas schools.

The Journal spoke with 62-year-old Rik Heller, the Dallas-based inventor of welloStationX, about his device and how it could help the world get back to normal while reopening.

Jewish Journal: How did you come up with the idea for welloStationX?

Rik Heller: [Working with hospitals], I became aware that the single biggest problem was the people who were visiting and spreading the diseases. It wasn’t the patients. We take such good care of people in our hospitals compared to letting people in who are potentially infectious. Fever is the leading symptom of infection and it comes up in every pandemic. We would put welloStationX in front of compromised places like ICUs, NICUs and bone marrow transplant facilities. That was the idea. We had to make it so there didn’t have to be a nurse or professional around. We made it self-service and non-touch.

JJ: How did COVID-19 change things for you?

RH: There was a change in law or guidance that said employers could take people’s temperatures. In Israel, they have made it into statute. Here, the guidance came from the executive branch so it’s subject to political whims. It may change with another president or Department of Labor person. But as soon as that opened up, all of a sudden, employers are doing what they always wanted to do, which is to ask sick people to go home, recover and come back. Businesses know that during flu season, if one person comes in sick, 10 are sick within two to three days. From those 10 people, two will come in and make more people sick. Epidemics happen in offices and child care facilities all the time.

JJ: Who are you selling welloStationX to now?

RH: Mostly people are ordering it for high-employee count manufacturing facilities and software companies around the world. We’re getting requests for it in very large grocery stores too.

JJ: Have you received feedback yet on the difference it’s made?

RH: People are very satisfied with the fact that they are doing something meaningful and the product works. It’s an FDA medical device and they don’t have to have a clinician by the door. It talks to you. It’s probably the most perfect temperature device in terms of sight. If you put an oral thermometer in your mouth, it goes into a pocket on the left or right side. The left pocket is a little cooler than the right pocket. With sight, we measure temperature by using artificial intelligence to get the person’s face to line up [with the device].

JJ: How do you think welloStationX is stopping the spread of COVID-19? 

RH: COVID-19 is highly infectious. If we can catch a person who has it, we’ll give them the awareness immediately.

JJ: Are you selling welloStationX to synagogues or other Jewish organizations?

RH: No, but we’d love to help out. We are charitable and really interested in a wellness epidemic. It’s truly our mission.

Fever is the leading symptom of infection and it comes up in every pandemic. We would put welloStationX in front of compromised places like ICUs, NICUs and bone marrow transplant facilities.

JJ: What do you think life will look like post-COVID-19 shutdowns? 

RH: We’ll get our way, which is to have much better hygiene. Hand washing has been a value taught in health care and food service, and there are a lot of products and pushes to make sure people wash their hands. Jews have been doing it before meals for 5,000 years. It’s going to saturate life, and people will be much more respectful of other people. The Japanese have a culture to wear a mask when they have symptoms. If you ask American people before COVID-19 why you wear a mask, they would say so I don’t get sick. It turns out the mask doesn’t give you much protection if any. However, it does keep you from spreading it. Now we’re all much better tuned into a cough and if someone coughs, heads turn. A sneeze is scary.

JJ: What is your Jewish background?

RH: I’m not frum, but my son is a ba’al teshuvah and lives in Jerusalem. I attend Torah and Talmud studies weekly, when able. When we were kids, my brother Reid and I convinced our parents to join a synagogue. It was Reform. I did a lot of Jewish programming for peers and became a national leader of the largest U.S. Jewish youth movement in the day, NFTY.

JJ: Did any Jewish teachings or values inspire you to create welloStationX? 

RH: Save one life, save the world. The interesting thing is we’ll never know whose life we saved, and the person who was saved will never know how it was saved. There are plenty of immunocompromised people now. People are taking things for chronic diseases that solely suppress the immune system. This means that if they’re around sick people, there’s much more of a likelihood that they will get sick. Well people can be around sick people and not get this.

JJ: Do you have any other resources for people?

RH: There’s an app on our website, WelloWatch™, that’s free. It shows you a map and a green, yellow or red dot that’s updated every hour, which is a way of knowing what indoor conditions are like in relative humidity. Moisture is the most aggravating thing to a virus. It spreads like crazy in dryness. We apply mathematical computations to the world. My wife and I wouldn’t go shopping [on a dry red day]. We’d go on a green day, a moisture day. A doctor told us a good health day is a bad hair day.