JOPLIN, Mo. — A retirement community is turning to new technology to fight coronavirus.

Dan Shields, Executive Director, said, “We felt like it was a good way to best protect our residents by having some of the latest technology.”

The Wildwood Senior Living Community of Joplin has three new pieces of technology to keep the facility safe. They recently added a thermographic heat sensing camera for visitors. It can check a person’s temperature detect if someone is wearing a mask and give them a covid screening.

Brian Nikodim, Director of Technology, said, “It asks for their name, purpose of the visit, if they’ve experienced any of the covid related symptoms, fever. Then it asks if they’ve been fully vaccinated.That helps us determine if the person can enter the building safely or if we need to add secondary or extra ppe precautions applied to them.”

If anyone is flagged — they will provide guests with gowns and masks so they can safely visit residents. This new check in system also helps them with contact tracing.

“We can go back and verify when someone was here. If they end up getting sick we can see what community they visited and what time just to help track down a better timeline of when the infection started.”

The retirement community also uses electrostatic sprayers twice a day throughout the facility. It kills coronavirus, influenza, and other germs on contact.

“The electrostatic sprayer has magnetic particles that will stick to different surfaces and to help disenfect much quicker and that will help to protect more surfaces,” said Shields.

They plan on implementing the new technology throughout the rest of their facilities.

“I think its great. I think senior living is such an important part of each community.”