Rik Heller is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Wello. A self-confessed technology and healthcare geek, Rik has also been called the Grandfather of Active RFID and holds many patents in this area that are licensed globally. With a background in math and electrical engineering, he has been working in healthcare since 1989.
In 1999 Rik Heller founded FreshLoc and became a pioneer of environmental monitoring for compliance and reporting in the healthcare industry. FreshLoc is a remote temperature monitoring technology for hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, and other healthcare entities to help comply with temperature related safety regulations.
More recently, Rik has pursued interests in infection prevention and control, founding Wello. There he has developed, among other high-tech digital solutions, a hands-free, self-service fever screening, identification and notification platform that is focused on controlling entry of potentially contagious persons to very high-risk patient areas. Rik calls this a “barrier technology” and believes that in the battle against Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) it’s critical that we “separate the match from the fuse”.
Episode 003 (part 2 of our IPAC series):
We cover a lot of ground on this episode, including:
- How infections spread
- Why it’s only partly a healthcare solution that we need to seek
- The role of humidity in mitigating or amplifying a contagion
- Why we must dispel the myth that asymptomatic people are the problem
- How 10% of the sick are “super-spreaders” and how we can identify them
- Why you should stay home when you’re sick and why your employer should make you
- Where the CDC gets it wrong
- Why good hair days are bad health days
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You can learn more about Rik here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rikheller/
Twitter: @rikheller
Wello: https://welloinc.com/
Wello on Twitter: @Wello_Inc
This episode is part of The #HCBiz Show’s Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) series. We’d like to thank our partners InfectionControl.tips and the Center of Excellence for Infection Prevention and Control (COE IPAC) for their support and guidance with the series.
About InfectionControl.tips
InfectionControl.tips is a Pan-Access journal that extends globally and touches locally. www.IC.tips is: Free to Publish. Free to Access and provides Accessible Scientific Services.
About Center of Excellence for Infection Prevention and Control (COE IPAC)
Center of Excellence for Infection Prevention and Control (COE IPAC) is a collaborative effort to accelerate and support new solutions that hold the promise of significantly advancing infection prevention and control. On a quarterly basis, the Center of Excellence will evaluate at least 3 international innovations – giving them access to independent testing, publication as well as a US commercialization site.
The #HCBiz Show! is produced by Glide Health IT, LLC in partnership with Netspective Media.