IT Business Net: GRAND RAPIDS, MI and SAN DIEGO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/09/09 -- Skytron and Awarepoint today announced deployment of their Real-time Location System (RTLS) (http://www.awarepoint.com/solutions.html) at Frank R. Howard Memorial Hospital (Howard Hospital), in Willits, California. Howard Hospital is part of Adventist Health, a not-for-profit, faith-based health system operating in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington.

Howard Hospital is using Skytron Asset Manager (http://www.skytron.us/s-asst-mgr.htm), powered by Awarepoint, to track mobile patient care assets including beds, infusion pumps, suction and aspiration devices, electronic thermometers, telemetry and vital signs monitors. Assets are located campus-wide across multiple hospital buildings, including the main hospital, CAT scan building, outpatient imaging center and storage facility.

Skytron Asset Manager is powered by Awarepoint's ZigBee (http://www.zigbee.org/)-based wireless sensor network and is a fully managed service including hardware, software, remote monitoring and maintenance. Using underlying ZigBee technology and patented computational algorithms, the system provides true enterprise-wide awareness -- not only room-level, but persistent accuracy across the entire hospital footprint.

"The ability to tightly manage the location, status and utilization of our inventory will have a profound effect on reducing unneeded equipment purchases and eliminating lost or misplaced items," said Carlton Jacobson, Howard Memorial's Vice President of Finance. "At the same time, reducing staff time and frustration in finding what they need not only improves their job satisfaction, but increases the amount of time spent on direct patient care."

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Earth Times: GRAND RAPIDS, MI and SAN DIEGO, CA -- 09/01/09 -- Skytron today announced the addition of Skytron Asset Manager, powered by Awarepoint, to its agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners L.P., the group purchasing unit of Premier Inc. Premier members will now have access to pre-negotiated pricing on margin improvement tools to create new revenue streams and reduce expenses. Skytron Asset Manager (http://www.skytron.us/s-asst-mgr.htm) is a perfect complement to Premier members, providing a way for hospitals to get more productivity while spending less.

"Skytron is extremely excited to partner with Premier in bringing RTLS solutions to their members' hospitals," said Mike Breslin, Skytron Corporate Accounts Director. "Skytron Asset Manager will have a direct impact on each member's bottom line and allow them to utilize their limited resources to provide the best healthcare possible. Premier took notice of an opportunity to help their member hospitals and has moved to capitalize on those real dollar savings quickly."

Skytron Asset Manager is specifically designed to boost productivity, lower equipment costs, improve workflows, and optimize utilization of critical assets. Skytron Asset Manager utilizes Awarepoint's patented ZigBee (www.zigbee.org) wireless sensor network technology that is easy to use and install, without disruption to patient care or existing IT infrastructure. Sensors simply plug into electrical outlets to form an enterprise-wide wireless network. Low-power active RFID tags are attached to equipment, which can then be located through the enterprise with one to three meter in-room location accuracy. A comprehensive reporting suite provides business intelligence about the location, status, movement and usage of mobile medical equipment. Skytron offers its RTLS as a fully managed service, providing hardware, software, installation, maintenance and ongoing support.

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Reuters (Business Wire): REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sep 02, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., the group purchasing unit of the Premier healthcare alliance has selected AeroScout's healthcare visibility solutions as the exclusive Wi-Fi-based RFID solutions for Premier's member hospitals. Premier, a quality and cost improvement alliance of more than 2,200 U.S. hospitals and 63,000 other healthcare sites, awarded a three-year contract to AeroScout as a preferred provider for RFID Asset Tracking and Management Solutions. AeroScout solutions provide visibility into the location, status and condition of assets, patients and staff throughout all hospital departments. AeroScout is already the chosen solution for hundreds of hospitals and is exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association.
"Premier is proud to offer RFID solutions that drive key benefits for hospital organizations, such as ensuring regulatory compliance, improving patient safety, reducing capital and operational expenditures, increasing staff efficiency and enhancing patient care," said Mike Alkire, President of Premier Purchasing Partners.
AeroScout's healthcare solutions include real-time Asset Management, Equipment Maintenance, Humidity & Temperature Monitoring, Workflow & Resource Management and Patient & Staff Safety. These applications all employ AeroScout's industry-leading technology that leverages clients' existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and integrates with most healthcare IT software systems. AeroScout solutions serve the needs of clinical staff, IT management, clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, materials management, laboratory staff, pharmacy personnel and many other hospital users.

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PR News Wire: BATESVILLE, Ind., and ANDOVER, Mass., Sept 02, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Hill-Rom /quotes/comstock/13*!hrc/quotes/nls/hrc (HRC 20.41, 0.00, 0.00%) and Radianse today announced a strategic partnership agreement to integrate the Radianse real-time location system (RTLS) into Hill-Rom's leading NaviCare(R) Nurse Call system. With this move, Hill-Rom intends to extend its leadership in health care locating beyond staff tracking to remove financial and technical obstacles for health care customers as they consider high-precision, enterprise-wide RTLS for equipment, patients and staff.

More than 800 health care customers now use Hill-Rom's integrated locating solution. The addition of Radianse RTLS as an option for future implementations follows an independent verification of Radianse location accuracy and precision reliability. "This partnership is truly an exciting opportunity," said Mike Gallup, general manager of Hill-Rom IT Solutions. "Every hospital must have a nurse call system. Soon, health care providers will be able to enjoy the benefits of locating staff, patients, and equipment all off of one integrated nurse communications platform from Hill-Rom. This will help them know when and where equipment, patients and staff move and interact--real-time visibility that can increase caregiver effectiveness and enhance patient safety."

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ADVANCE: Sonitor Technologies, Inc., a developer, manufacturer and supplier of ultrasound indoor positioning systems (IPS) and real-time location systems, released a single-use, outer shell-cased active ultrasound wristband tag.

The Tag, named P-Tag, weighing less than an ounce and measuring 1.4 x 1.5 x 0.7 inches, is a small battery-powered wireless device, attached by snapping the shell onto any standard patient wristband, or similar band or lanyard. Protected against possible infectious contamination by the disposable outer shell, the core is designed for repeated use without the need for cleaning. The P-Tag transmits a unique identification code using ultrasound in the frequency range of 35 to 45 kHz at configurable transmission intervals. A Sonitor IPS Detector (microphone) receives and transfers the Tag ID code to a server, leveraging the hospital's wired or wireless LAN, which stores the Tag's location and the time-stamp information in its database. The tracking information can then be accessed by users on computers, tablet PCs, PDAs and mobile phones using application software solutions from third-party software applications.

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MARKETWIRE via COMTEX: SAN DIEGO, CA, Aug 31, 2009 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Awarepoint Corporation, a provider of ZigBee-based real-time location system (RTLS) solutions to the healthcare market, today announced that Edward J. Zander has joined the company's board of directors. Zander has spent more than 35 years in the technology sector. He has played a key role in shaping some of the major paradigm shifts in technology that impact the world today. These include the move from mainframes to minicomputers; minicomputers to workstations; PCs to networking and to the Internet; hardware to software; and the revolution in wireless devices and mobility.

Zander was most recently chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Motorola. During his tenure, he sharpened Motorola's edge in technology innovation; delivered on 12 consecutive quarters of revenue growth; streamlined the business to increase operating efficiencies worldwide; significantly improved the balance sheet and acquired and divested businesses to strengthen the company's competitive position.

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Market Wire: CHARLOTTE, NC and WILMINGTON, DE, Aug 27 (MARKET WIRE)
--
Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSLR), today announced that Christiana Care Health System, Wilmington, DE has selected the company's Amelior Tracker(R) system to automatically track and manage the hospital's assets throughout their two facilities. Christiana Care is one of the mid-Atlantic region's largest not-for-profit healthcare providers including Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, and Wilmington Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. Together, the hospitals have over 1,100 licensed hospital beds, support over 42,000 surgical procedures and admit more than 55,000 patients annually. Christiana Care will integrate the Awarepoint Real-time Location System (RTLS) to provide automatic location data capture to the Amelior Tracker end-user software. Awarepoint serves its U.S. healthcare customers through its exclusive distribution partnership with Skytron. Christiana Care has been a workflow automation partner with PCTS since 2004. Throughout the last five years, Christiana Care has implemented Amelior EDTracker(R) in both Christiana Hospital and Wilmington Hospital. The software's impact has allowed the combined emergency departments (ED) with over 160,000 ED visits a year, to achieve 100% real-time location of patients, as well as decrease wait time and increase patient and staff satisfaction.

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FedBizOpps. GOV: The National Library of Medicine is spearheading the planning, procurement and implementation of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) / Real Time Location System (RTLS) for the Bethesda Hospitals' Emergency Preparedness Partnership (BHEPP). A draft of the Statement of Work is attached.
OBJECTIVES
The National Library of Medicine will be seeking contractor(s) that shall furnish the necessary personnel, products, materials and other services required to plan and implement a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) / Real Time Location System (RTLS) for the Bethesda Hospitals' Emergency Preparedness Partnership (BHEPP).
The BHEPP has identified a critical need for the acquisition of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) / Real Time Location System (RTLS) to directly support the current emergency preparedness initiatives of three of its members, namely, the National Naval Medical Center, National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, and Suburban Hospital Healthcare System. The BHEPP requires a system that will operate on a stand-alone network, separate from BHEPP partner production networks, and a scalable system that can be implemented incrementally as more requirements are requested by the Partnership. The RFID/RTLS solution shall incorporate role-based access so as to provide BHEPP the ability to track patients and assets across all three hospitals, while at the same time providing each of the hospitals the ability to track their own patients and assets.
Initial RFID/RTLS requirements will focus on patient tracking, inventory management, disaster exercise support, and systems integration as outlined below:
I. Patient Tracking: Tracking of disaster victims within each of the Partnership facilities, and of stable medical/surgical patients being transported among facilities during mass casualty situations.
II. Critical Asset Management: Managing/tracking critical assets to ensure easy location and mobilization during mass casualty situations.
III. Systems Integration: Providing necessary application program interfaces (APIs) to facilitate the integration of the RFID/RTLS system with other BHEPP disaster response applications through open standards.
IV. Disaster Exercise Support: Support collaborative multi-agency disaster exercises to demonstrate the effectiveness of RFID/RTLS technology in patient tracking and inventory management during mass casualty situations.
Tasking will be performed primarily at the facilities of the Suburban Hospital, National Naval Medical Center, and National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Meetings and coordination activities will be conducted at National Library Medicine Buildings 38 and 38A, National Institutes of Health main campus, located in Bethesda, Maryland, in addition to the other BHEPP partner locations.

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Australian IT: AGED-CARE provider PresCare investigated a range of electronic aids for residents at its newest Queensland site.
After trialling the use of wireless radio-frequency identification chips at several of its complexes, PresCare built a $30 million flagship facility at Carina, in Brisbane, offering state-of-the-art technology services.
Known as Vela, the Carina site, which will soon have its official opening, began taking residents in March and now has 54 occupants. It is expected to be fully occupied by Christmas.
Vela offers video-on-demand, Foxtel, free-to-air TV and internet protocol phones and radio in residents' rooms. The site has 154 beds, with $5.5m invested in technology alone.
PresCare technology director and chief financial officer Greg Skelton said the focus of the facility was improving safety and the in-room experience for residents.
"We were finding that a lot of our residents were having falls and they could not get to a fixed point, so they were often stranded calling out for help," Mr Skelton said.
"We put this RFID solution together so that we can actually find the residents within a 3m proximity of wherever they are."

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Market Wire: SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwire - August 24, 2009) - Awarepoint Corporation (www.awarepoint.com), a provider of real-time location system (www.awarepoint.com/rtls.shtml) (RTLS) solutions, today announced that Dr. Dennis O'Leary has joined the company as chief strategy officer. In this role, O'Leary will assist Jason Howe, chief executive officer, with creating, communicating, executing, and sustaining strategic initiatives within Awarepoint. Prior to joining Awarepoint, O'Leary served a 21-year tenure as President of The Joint Commission. During that time, O'Leary led the successful transformation of its accreditation process to focus on actual organization performance in the provision of patient care. He is now President Emeritus of The Joint Commission.
Prior to his time at The Joint Commission, O'Leary served as Dean for Clinical Affairs at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and Vice President of the George Washington University Health Plan. At George Washington, he achieved the faculty rank of Professor of Medicine and served as Medical Director of the University Hospital. O'Leary has been active in a variety of professional activities. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and served as a member of the board of directors of the National Quality Forum and as a member of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In 2000, he was identified by Modern Healthcare as "one of the 25 most influential leaders in health care." O'Leary earned his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, New York, NY, and his bachelor's degree from Harvard College, Cambridge, MA. Awarepoint is growing its health care vision to a new generation of connected health solutions and is actively building an ecosystem of partners that will enable it to expand its location-aware technologies (www.awarepoint.com/technology.html) for use in a wider range of applications and service offerings.

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