PR Newswire:
Leading Canadian Hospital Uses Ekahau Badge Tags and Wi-Fi-based Location Tracking Technology to Speed Response Times When Staff Need Assistance

RESTON, Virginia, April 20, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --

Ekahau Inc., the performance leader in Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that the Centre de sante et services sociaux (CSSS) de St-Jerome (the St-Jerome health and social services centre), a 405-bed multidisciplinary hospital in Quebec, Canada, is utilizing Ekahau RTLS to improve patient and staff safety. Ekahau is proud to work with ICT solution provider and system integrator Bell Canada to deliver an innovative solution that enables faster response times when patients or staff need assistance. It works by pinpointing their location using the Ekahau T301BD pager tags worn by hospital staff in the hospital's mental health facility.

The Ekahau tags are part of the Ekahau RTLS solution, an enterprise-grade location tracking platform used today by many leading hospitals around the world. Ekahau RTLS leverages a hospital's existing Wi-Fi network to locate small battery-powered tags anywhere within the footprint of the network within a matter of seconds.

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PRWEB: (PRWEB) April 15, 2010 -- Vancouver-based Guard RFID Solutions Inc has announced the release of its new real-time locating system (RTLS) middleware engine – Argus 2.0. The updated Argus platform adds features designed to unlock additional functionality and increases end-user control for industrial, enterprise and healthcare applications. Standards-based Argus 2.0 is a highly configurable, easily-integrated platform supporting complete business solutions based on GuardRFID’s breakthrough active RFID tag technology.

“We are excited about offering our solution partners and customers the enhanced capabilities available in Argus 2.0. This reflects our commitment to continuously advancing our technology and staying at the forefront of what is possible in the RFID space,” said Zahir Abji, GuardRFID President & CEO. The new Argus 2.0 release delivers systems integrators and solution providers enhanced features, greater control over acquired tag data, and algorithms that provide better fault tolerance for external interfaces that have stability or reliability problems. Additionally, the Argus 2.0 comes with fully integrated interfaces for industry standard access control systems and all major CCTV systems.

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theRTLSBlog.com: Bloomfield, CT - March 16th, 2010 - Rauland-Borg, the leader in Healthcare Nurse Call Systems and Visonic Technologies a global provider of scalable Active RFID/RTLS based safety, security and management solutions for the healthcare industry announce the integration of Elpas RTLS technology with the Responder 5 Nurse Call System. This joint collaboration between Visonic Technologies and Rauland-Borg provides Responder 5 with real-time staff presence functionality throughout the hospital to room and sub-room level accuracy, automatic visual indication that a patient's needs are being responded to and automatic nurse call cancellation.

The ability to locate caregivers is one of the primary challenges hospitals face when it comes to streamlining the delivery of safe and effective care. Improving staff response times to emergencies and special situations is a great example of how Elpas RTLS technology using existing wired or wireless Ethernet/Wi-Fi networks can be applied to benefit hospitals using the Responder 5 Nurse Call system. ‘Knowing the location of the required caregiver or location of where the medical incident is occurring to room level and with sub-room level precision in real-time, can mean a world of difference to the medical outcome” said Harry Murray, President Visonic Technologies America. “Besides improving the quality of patient care, the combination of Elpas RTLS with Responder 5 will also help hospitals reduce the amount of manual reporting required from staff and facilitate care giver guideline compliance.

Hospitals may easily leverage their Elpas RTLS investment to enhance other areas of patient and personnel safety including infant/baby protection in maternity wards, staff attack/duress alerting and wandering patient supervision. Elpas Active RFID/RTLS can also be scaled to manage mobile medical assets in order to reduce shrinkage and lower maintenance related labor costs without degradation to RTLS Responder-5 functionality.

About Visonic Technologies

Visonic Technologies (VT) is a fully owned subsidiary of The Visonic Group (vsc.TA) and is a global provider of scalable Active RFID/RTLS based safety, security and management solutions for the healthcare industry and leverage wired or wireless Ethernet/Wi-Fi networks. VT delivers out-of-the-box as well as custom tailored risk mitigation tools that enhance patient and personnel safety, infant protection; delivers comprehensive asset management; lessens negligence litigation and facilitates industry guideline compliance.

The company currently serves customers throughout the Americas, the U.K., EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

About Rauland-Borg
For over 80 years, Rauland-Borg has been the industry leader in manufacture and design of communications and life-safety equipment for institutional environments. Rauland Responder® Nurse Call combines traditional nurse call components with the latest technology and software management tools. Responder systems offer fast, complete and flexible solutions for staff-to-staff and staff-to-patient communication; resulting in enhanced productivity and higher standard of patient care. For more information on Responder Nurse Call Systems, visit www.rauland.com.

Contact
Talia Savir
Marketing Communications Coordinator-Visonic Technologies
Tel: +972 3 7681400
Fax: +972 3 7681415
E-mail: talias@visonictech.com
Web Site: www.visonictech.com

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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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M2M:

Ekahau, www.ekahau.com, Saratoga, Calif., has announced that its Real Time Location System (RTLS) has been selected by Flagler Hospital, a 316-bed acute care hospital based in St. Augustine, Fla., in order to provide a variety of hospital-wide asset tracking, work-flow, and management applications.

RTLS is a system that can track the location of tagged assets over any generation or brand of enterprise-grade Wi-Fi network. Flagler Hospital uses a campus-wide wireless LAN (local-area network) from Cisco Systems, www.cisco.com, San Jose, Calif., for various applications, which means the same network can now be employed for inventory control and tracking several thousand clinical assets. Flagler Hospital expects to add more location-based applications, including staff and patient tracking and temperature monitoring in future.

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