CNN Money: In clinical environments, an accurate real-time locating system (RTLS) can do so much more than simply help locate equipment. For more than 20 years, Versus Technology, Inc. (Versus) has devoted its time, energy and resources to developing and supporting RTLS applications that do everything from basic locating to automated patient flow and advanced workflow automation.

With hundreds of happy clients, countless integrations and an expanding partner group, Versus is pleased to showcase the most transformational RTLS applications in existence at this year's Health Information Management Systems Society conference, (HIMSS). You'll find Versus at booth #7949, the Rauland-Borg booth (#5603) and at Microsoft®'s booth (#6733) during exhibit hall hours, with special presentations from Ginger Banks and Steve Willis, both of PeaceHealth, at the Product Pavilion Session on Tuesday, March 2, from 3:15pm-4pm and at the American Hospital Association's booth (#6115) on Monday, March 1 from 4:30pm-5:15pm. These presentations will focus on using the Versus system for situational awareness and improved patient flow.

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TMCnet.com: Patient Care Technology Systems, a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc., has announced that the company’s Amelior Tracker system has been selected by South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center to automatically track and effectively manage physician location and communication inside and outside the hospital.

South Jersey Healthcare Regional Medical Center is a 262-bed facility in Vineland, N.J. To complement and enhance the delivery of responsive, efficient care, the integrated medical campus, which is a part of the South Jersey Healthcare network, is uniquely designed.

The installation will include the Amelior Tracker solution which is a part of the Amelior Enterprise Visibility Suite comprising department to facility-wide software solutions and services designed to more efficiently and safely orchestrate patient care through the real-time visualization of patient flow. The installation is expected to get completed by spring 2010.

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DOT Med News: FORT WAYNE, IN -- EXTENSION, INC. and AeroScout have announced that the two companies have collaborated to develop integrated solutions that combine EXTENSION's VoIP alerting with AeroScout's Healthcare RTLS (Real-Time Location System). AeroScout's core healthcare offerings provide real-time location, status and condition information about assets, patients and staff. EXTENSION, INC. provides an appliance-based software application that aggregates HL7 and web-services data from all HIS and EMR systems, delivers relevant information to mobile devices such as Cisco IP Phones and cell phones and allows recipients to send automated responses via their device. Together, the two companies can provide a more enriched, clinically-relevant tracking and alerting solution integrated with the Cisco Unified Communications platform so that healthcare organizations can improve clinical and operational workflows.

Both AeroScout and EXTENSION provide solutions that leverage healthcare organizations' existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. EXTENSION offers a comprehensive solution suite, including EXTENSION® HealthLocate™ for AeroScout and Cisco that utilizes the entire Cisco Unified Communications platform including Cisco Unified Presence Server for location services. Todd Plesko, CEO of EXTENSION, INC. noted, "EXTENSION can offer an extensive number of interfaces through a single, enterprise appliance. When healthcare institutions implement our solutions they can expect immediate improvements in communications among disparate systems, departments and across their entire organization. We are thrilled to have joined forces with AeroScout as this allows us to provide a solution in the fast-growing healthcare RTLS space with the recognized market leader."

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Fresh News: TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- (Marketwire) -- 02/17/10 -- Rouge Valley Health System (RVHS) recently selected Versus Technology, Inc.'s (Versus) Real-time Locating System (RTLS) to advance efficiency and safety within the new Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering emergency department (ED). Though Versus has been providing location-based clinical workflow automation to hospitals and clinics for years, the solution at Ajax and Pickering will be the first of its kind to support Ministry of Health and Long-term Care performance goals. This is especially important to RVHS as Ajax/Pickering undergoes an expansion and expects ED patient volume to surge to 60,000 annual visits.

In 2008, RVHS was one of 23 hospitals selected by the Ontario government to focus on reducing ED wait times. "Efficient patient flow is evidenced to have a positive impact on safety, satisfaction and revenue," explains Darren Micallef, Consultant, HC4Site. "The provincial target wait times are very achievable at 8 hours for complex conditions and 4 hours for minor conditions, but hospitals struggle with identifying roadblocks. Bringing in an expert at patient flow, like Versus, is key to ensuring that the provincial targets are not only achieved, but achieved in a manner that is timely, efficient, intuitive for staff and that complements Rouge Valley's unique processes."

The Versus RTLS solution will be deployed in phases. The first phase will include a Dashboard, with key performance indicators (KPIs) like 'overall length of stay' and 'bed assignment to room' times displayed in real-time. A centrally-located electronic whiteboard (also available at individual workstations) will convey patient location and relevant patient information, like assigned caregivers.

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News Reel Network: Sellersville, PA, February 20, 2010 — Intelligent InSites, Inc., announced today that Rockhill Mennonite Community (Rockhill), a continuing care retirement community located in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, has implemented the InSites Enterprise Visibility Platform™ as the core of its resident care & safety solution. The innovative “indoor positioning system” offered by Intelligent InSites integrates real-time location sensing hardware provided by CenTrak and communication devices, such as pagers and PDAs, to monitor movement throughout the community and provides accurate and instant location information to enhance the level of care, services, and safety. Each resident is provided a small pendant, which allows them to request assistance from anywhere in the facility by simply pressing a button on the pendant. The assistance request instantly alerts staff of the resident’s name, photo, and precise location. Requests for assistance are also delivered automatically on the residents behalf should the solution sense a potentially troublesome situation, such as entering a restricted area or spending an inordinate amount of time without movement. Additionally, the software provides, updated in real-time, a map view of the facility with an icon for representing each staff member, resident, or even equipment, as they move around the facility. This way staff can head to that specific location without any delay, a tremendous improvement over traditional nurse call systems, which rely on the residents to activate alerts and do not provide their current location. The InSites solution also supports inputs and alerts from other systems, such as fall prevention, access control, or healthcare information systems, to be delivered through the InSites mobile workflow engine so the critical information is provided immediately to the right caregiver regardless of where they may be. “Staff have commented on their sense of improved productivity after implementing the InSites solution. That equates to additional time that can be redirected towards resident care,” said Ron Sawatsky, CEO of Rockhill. The implementation of the InSites solution also provides families more insight into the lives of their loved ones. The system is able to passively record resident activities, thereby providing a way for families and caregivers to ensure residents are involved in day-to-day events and interactions, and not simply being sedentary for hours. “The value of understanding what activities residents participate in allows us to better serve their needs, which directly relates to their overall satisfaction,” Sawatsky explained. “We are proud to partner with Rockhill as they embrace the use of these innovative, yet practical, technologies to elevate the level of care they are able to provide their residents. We’ve found that residents most appreciate the independence and sense of security the system provides, while the staff really likes the time it saves them each day,” commented Mark Rheault, President and CEO of Intelligent InSites. “InSites solution enables us to fulfill our mission of improving our residents’ quality of life by providing best care, service and safety,” Sawatsky concluded.

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EETimes: The European Patent Office has granted a patent covering the ranging method which enables Essensium NV to provide a combination of high accuracy and long range in its wireless real time location system (RTLS) products. The Essensium (Leuven, Belgium) approach combines the benefits of both narrowband and wideband behaviour in a single wide-over-narrowband RF implementation.

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theRTLSBlog.com: Airetrak, the leading UK provider of Wi-Fi based Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) to the Healthcare and Education sectors, has further enhanced its ResourceView application with the introduction of three, new key innovations. They include more comprehensive zoning system to allow hierarchical zones, improved management of status changes on tagged equipment and an enhanced proximity function to allow searching for resources in close proximity. ResourceView is a comprehensive tracking solution which utilises an organisation’s Wireless LAN to track vital assets within a building. The system uses small Wi-Fi based RFID tags, attached to portable equipment, to send signals to the organisation’s wireless network. Through a process of triangulation, the wireless network determines the position of the tags and therefore the location of the portable devices, which are viewed on a web-browser. This form of asset tracking has become a cost effective solution to organisations, like hospitals, that have installed Wireless LAN technology and utilise it together with Wi-Fi based RFID tags, which have become smaller, cheaper and now have batteries that can last up to five years. The enhancements to ResourceView include a hierarchical zoning system that allows exact locations to be defined. On a hospital, for example, this could be to building, floor, ward, room, bay, and even down to a store cupboard. The status changes allow the display of resources to be altered based on changes to the status of the resource, such as a bed becoming available or a patient contracting a particular infection. The proximity function enhancement allows users to search for available resources, such as the whereabouts of the nearest wheelchair. The ResourceView RTLS solution integrates with the Cisco’s 3350 Mobility Service Engine (MSE) to provide location across Cisco’s Wireless LAN platform. As a Cisco Development Partner, Airetrak is utilising Cisco’s platform to provide simplified delivery, scalability and management of mobile services. Airetrak’s ResourceView technology uses RFID location technology to improve staff efficiency, reduce theft and loss of equipment as well as provide a secure system for controlling temperature sensitive environments. Less time is spent searching for equipment thereby enabling greater utilisation of staff and equipment. It can improve visibility of when assets arriving at or leave key facilities and their location within a facility. The Airetrak location solution can be used across a range of industries from Healthcare to Manufacturing and provides the flexibility to integrate with existing systems to deliver location information and value throughout an organisation.

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PCMag.com: by Mark Hachman

Google hosted an event in Mountain View on Monday, demonstrating the future of its search algorithm, which now encompasses real-time and visually-assisted capabilities.

Demonstrations included a new voice search in Japanese, and a real-time, cloud-based translation beta service. But the highlight of the event was the addition of real-time search, which will pull results from Twitter, and from Facebook and MySpace in the next few weeks.

According to Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, Google predicated its search improvements on what she called four modalities: modes, media, language and personalization. Google confined the company's demonstrations to just language and media, with the goal of matching the richness of the Web.

"When you merge location-based search, community search with real-time search you will end up with a product that you will want, and that will be coming from a Google near you," quipped Amit Singhal, a Google fellow who introduced the real-time search results.

Google made a number of search-related announcements on Monday, the majority of them mobile related. Google Voice Search for Android and iPhone now supports Japanese, in addition to English and Mandarin. Users can also download Google Maps for Android version 3.3, which will identify and rank places of significance near a user's physical location. Google also launched the "Google Goggles" application for mobile devices, which can supposedly identify objects by taking a picture of them.

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Medic Exchange: Visonic Technologies (VT), a global leader in unified RFID / RTLS safety and security solutions for the global healthcare industry, announces the immediate availability of its enhanced Elpas Active RFID/RTLS Reusable Tag. The tag’s unique form factor and comfort, now makes it more suitable for providing abduction deterrence for newborns and infants in maternity units and neonatal care departments or for the monitoring and tracking of high-risk patients who show signs of elopement and or wandering.

The tag’s dual technology transmitter emits low power, beacon type UHF radio frequency (RF) messages as well as supplemental infra-red (IR) messages that can be used to determine the location of the infant/patient to room level and sub-room level precision in open and enclosed indoor spaces without EMF interference to hospital equipment.

The Reusable Tag incorporates a magnetic low frequency (LF) receiver that adds chokepoint area detection so whenever a patient/infant physically comes in close proximity to a prohibited exit/entrance a security intervention alarm can be configured to automatically trigger. The tag also transmits supervision messages for keeping security personnel informed of device tampering or the unsupervised removal of the patient/infant from the protected area.

The Elpas Reusable Tag has been reengineered in direct response to the growing need for more effective user-friendly, risk management tools in acute care hospitals, psychiatric units, geriatric care clinics; long-term nursing care facilities or pediatric units. “The use of the Elpas Reusable Tag for infant/patient identification, baby/mother matching, wandering patient monitoring, emergency calls and exit/entrance alerting provides healthcare professionals with an innovative solution to these worrisome concerns," said Michael Wasserstein, CEO of Visonic Technologies. “Additionally, the tag’s field-proven hospital-grade IP-67 water-rating outer casing, together with its new low power design ensures more then three years of maintenance-free patient deployments.”

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Pixavi: Pixavi today announced its new intrinsically safe, wireless, real time location system (RTLS), enabling organizations to precisely track location of both equipment and personnel. The RFID tag is certified for both Mining, Chemical plants and Oil&Gas according to IECex and ATEX and covering Zone 0, Zone 1 and Zone 2.

Intrinsically Safe Real Time Location Tracking Tag"We are very excited to introduce this technology to hazardous area applications. WLAN location tracking technology provides close to instant return on investment both from a safety and from an efficiency perspective," stated Pixavi Sales Director, Thomas Zaubi.

Using the award winning RTLS technology from Ekahau, Inc. the Xtag can operate on any existing standard Wi-Fi network, which eliminates the need to install dedicated infrastructure that otherwise would increase the equipment and installation cost considerably.

"By introducing this innovative client application to our diverse explosion proof wireless network product range, we are able to offer our customers a full range of Wi-Fi products, including access points, antennas, VoiP, wireless video communication, wireless surveillance cameras and location tracking devices," Zaubi continues.

Pixavi CEO, Christian Rokseth, added, "Wireless networks are already widely available in hazardous areas, which mean an instant access to this technology for many organizations. Today's worldwide financial situation puts a high demand on efficient and automated operation. Combining the Xtag location system with our Xpoint explosion proof and intrinsically safe access points, with the Xbeam EX explosion proof antennas, enables us to provide customer a full turn-key system. With this complete offering, our customers can now deploy a cost efficient, secure and solid RFID RTLS system for hazardous area Zone 0, zone 1 and zone 2."

Mr. Rokseth continues, "This new RTLS solution perfectly complements our state of the art wireless suite for hazardous area, like Pixavi's own intrinsically safe 802.11n wireless video communication technology, explosion proof wireless network producs, Wireless CCTV products and also third party wireless VoIP, PDAs, Rugged laptops and wireless Sensor Technology in order to increase efficiency and safety on these installations."

Pricing & Availability:

The Xtag is already available for ordering, with a pricing starting from 153 USD per tag. The Xtag is compatible with Ekahau RTLS software which is sold separately.

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