Kinsa Groups launched to monitor overall health of children in U.S. public schools

Kinsa, the maker of the first FDA approved app-enabled smartphone thermometer, today announced the launch of Kinsa Groups for its iOS and Android apps. The Groups feature is currently available for public schools across the United States. With Kinsa Groups, parents can monitor the overall health at their child's school to better track, treat, and stop the spread of illness at the earliest signs of symptoms.

By joining their school's Kinsa Group, parents can share symptoms and temperature either with the Kinsa Smart Thermometer or by manually entering information into the app. The information is anonymously populated into the group to create a "health report card," which includes how many children at the school are sick and what symptoms are going around, helping pinpoint whether symptoms like a sore throat are more likely linked to a common cold, flu, strep throat or something else. With this added context, parents can make informed decisions regarding when to visit the doctor, and doctors can make a quicker diagnosis.

Additionally, in-group messaging allows users to post messages, share a doctor's diagnosis or pose a health-related question. All messages and data are anonymous unless the user elects to provide their name – personally identifiable information isn't required at any point.

Future updates to Groups will allow users to create their own custom groups, for example one for their neighborhood, close friends, or an office.

"In today's hyper-connected society, there is no effective way to track symptoms and illness at the local level – Kinsa aims to change that," explains Kinsa Founder and CEO Inder Singh. "Kinsa's Groups feature will help parents know 'what's going around' their community so they can get their children better faster or avoid getting sick in the first place."

The launch of the Groups feature brings Kinsa another step closer to its mission: to create the "health weather," a real-time understanding of the local health situation, to help communities better track, treat, and stop the spread of illness.