This white paper discusses a proposed enhancement to the DASH7 specification that is being discussed among DASH7 Alliance members who are interested in adding real-time locating and Tag-to-Tag communications capabilities to the DASH7 specification.

Click here for complete Whitepaper. (Or check the cached copy below)

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.

Click here for complete story from EETimes

Essensium brings an innovative approach to RTLS, leveraging the accuracy benefits of UWB together with the range of narrow-band WiFi implementations, resulting in an industry-leading accuracy-range combination. With 15cm accuracy over long range, both indoors and outdoors, Essensium enables exciting new applications for Real Time Location Systems.

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.

Click here for complete story from M2M

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.

Click here for complete story from PCMag.com

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.”

Click here for complete story from Medic Exchange

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.

Click here for complete story from Pixavi

Earth Times: Andover, MA (PRWEB) December 2, 2009 -- Radianse, the pioneer and a leading provider of healthcare real-time location systems (RTLS), today announced new multi-use tracking tags. Small, sealed and featuring a one-year-battery, the Radianse tags are expected to cost between 10 and 40 cents per use for patient tracking.

"We consistently hear from hospitals that they need a low-cost, long-life and hassle-free tag," said Paul Tessier, a Radianse founder and the company's chief technology officer. "So we committed to a realistic cost model and performance criteria to meet multiple tracking needs. This tag is easy for clinicians to use on patients and equipment, with no battery management issues or need to deal with shells and other annoyance factors."

For patient tracking, there is the reality of the intense wear and tear, particularly in emergency and perioperative care, that can lead to tag inventory shrinkage. When paying just cents per use, hospitals say they are more likely to move forward with patient tracking initiatives, according to Radianse. Patient compliance, which requires comfort and convenience, are also factors. The Radianse tag slips onto a patient-ID band and is smooth, lightweight and water-resistant.

With a rugged design and at half the size and a fraction of the cost of any other tag on the market, the Radianse active-RFID tags are also appropriate for many asset tracking applications. For example, the tag is optimal for tracking rental devices and very small but critical equipment, including sensors, thermometers and telemetry transmitters. Since rental equipment is sometimes returned before tags are removed, a low list price was a must to justify using real-time tracking to manage rental equipment utilization.

Click here for complete story from Earth Times