Could This Technology Hold The Potential To Help Prevent Alcohol-Related Accidents And Deaths?

Photo by Vinicius "amnx" Amano on Unsplash

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Drinking alcohol can make people prone to minor and serious accidents, including car wrecks, falls, poisoning and drowning. Studies have shown that drivers who drink have a much higher risk of being involved in crashes than those who don’t.

Alcohol contributes to nearly half of all industrial accidents resulting in injuries at factories and workplaces. Workers with alcohol problems are 270% more likely to have accidents.

Excessive alcohol use kills more than 95,000 people in the United States each year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the cost of excessive alcohol use in the U.S. reached $249 billion in 2010 — about $2.05 per drink. Most — 77% — of these costs were because of binge drinking.

Some experts believe implementing effective interventions like advocacy and technology can help reduce excessive drinking and its deadly costs.

Helping Solve The Problem?

For years, companies like Honeywell International Inc. HON, Drägerwerk AG & Co. DRW, and Abbott Laboratories ABT have been advancing research and development in the space.

Other newer companies have also been attempting to innovate in the field to reduce the high rate of alcohol abuse and its related incidences. One example of such a company is SOBR Safe Inc. (SOBRsafe) SOBR, which has been working on solutions for alcohol policy management.

The company is trying to create alcohol-free environments to increase productivity and save lives. It hopes to achieve this through preventive detection to create a safer world.

To advance this mission, SOBRsafe developed SOBRcheck™, a non-invasive, touch-based identity verification and alcohol detection solution that’s in the prototype phase. 

SOBRcheck™ Features

 SOBRcheck™ is meant to give American employers control over the workforce and public safety while eliminating a significant drag on the bottom line. The device’s features include:

• Transdermal sensor: Alcohol detection with efficient workflow, non-invasive functionality; results in seconds.
• Biometric identification: Alcohol scan results tied to a unique, privacy-compliant biometric ID, helping prevent circumvention and enhancing security.
• Real-time management: Wireless delivery of enterprise-wide data to a central dashboard for immediate corrective action.
• Predictive analytics: Actionable data collection empowers reduced-risk modeling, potentially lowering insurance costs.
• Preventative solution: SOBRsafe gets ahead of the risk, helping to eliminate alcohol on the shop floor or behind the wheel.
• ISO 9001 compliance: Solution and services adhere to the highest standard of quality manufacturing and customer support.

The company says SOBRcheck™ is a touch technology with applications suited to last mile service & delivery, commercial trucking and warehousing & fulfillment. The solution is the only preventative transdermal alcohol-detection system in the U.S. It is augmented by a biometric ID sensor, linking detection results to a unique individual.

Data is delivered real-time through SOBRsafe’s cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) interface to human resources or occupational safety officers, empowering them to enforce their zero-tolerance policies.

The company is planning to launch a consumer wearable solution in 2022, and is evaluating additional detection technologies.

The company is currently exploring European distribution and licensing.

The company says the detection solution will help prevent an intoxicated worker from setting foot on the factory floor or a driver from taking the vehicle keys. An offender is immediately flagged, and the employer (or parent or rehab sponsor) is empowered to take appropriate corrective action.

For more information about the technology, visit sobrsafe.com.

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.