New South Wales Nurses Association

The appearance of Integrated Wireless (IW) at the recent 67^th Annual New South Wales Nurses Association (NSWNA) conference cemented the company's commitment to protecting hospital staff in often unstable environments. As the sole duress provider present, IW's dominance in this niche market was evident.

With the theme 'Taking the lead: Organising for safe patient care', this conference focused on staffing and patient care issues now and in the future. Our IW representatives were particularly impressed by Dr Di Twigg from Edith Cowan University who had some very interesting points around the need for change to ensure quality patient care. International perspectives from both Tonga and Ireland were addressed with fascinating comparisons to Australian nursing.

Luckily, many of the 'safe patient care' issues faced above can be solved with a complete emergency duress solution. 

 

This event gave IW the opportunity to speak with many existing clients to gain a greater understanding of their needs. Although VoWiFi and infant protection systems were discussed, the real interest revolved around leveraging IW duress solutions with an existing IP-PBX and integrating with nurse-call systems and fire panels.

Thank you to everyone who stopped to talk and we hope you enjoy one of many IW mugs and drink bottles given away!

For information on duress solutions and how they may assist your facility, click here!

Elderly Citizens Take The Fall

As the population ages, dementia cases are set to double by 2030 and triple by 2050. This will add pressure placed on aged care facilities and increase risk to elderly citizens who are unable to care for themselves.

Joan Ambrose, 79, suffered dementia and became disorientated in a Melbourne nursing home on the afternoon of February 7, 2009. It was 46 degrees and Mrs Ambrose walked to an outside courtyard to discover the door locked behind her. She tried and failed to gain the attention of 2 on-duty staff for more than three hours before her body was found dead at 4pm.

In response, Coroner Peter White urged the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency to demand that aged care facilities strictly control their entry/exit points as part of their extreme heat emergency management plans.

Patient Wristband

Part of the solution is a wandering resident monitoring system. Elderly citizens wear a wristband and a 'virtual boundary' is placed around specific areas of a facility. This 'geo-fencing' technique identifies when a person moves beyond a pre-defined area and sends an alarm to management and/or security. With the right advice, it is easy to install and manage. At Integrated Wireless, it is just one of many products we offer to help protect families.

 For more information on wandering resident solutions, click here!

ED Management

The appearance of Integrated Wireless (IW) at the 4^th Annual Emergency Department Management conference in July demonstrated the company's commitment to and understanding of the issues surrounding smoother work flows in ED environments.

This conference addressed issues relating to improved patient flows, ambulatory care, supporting IT systems and re-design, business planning in the ED and strengthening models of care. It was a great experience listening to many interesting speakers from Box Hill Hospital, Jundaloop Health Campus and Princess Alexandra Hospital, to name a few.

The good news is that many of the challenges mentioned above can be solved through integrating next generation nurse-call and duress solutions with existing facility infrastructure.

For IW, the opportunity to touch base with existing clients from hospitals Australia-wide was an added bonus and gave us the opportunity to greater understand our customers and their needs.

IW representatives in action

 

Thank you to all those who took the time to chat with us at the conference. We look forward to strengthening existing client relationships, and forging new ones, in the future.

Those interested in solutions to many of the challenges discussed, click here!

Product Release- ENSUREtelpage

It is critical in a hospital environment that nurses produce more in less time without error. They are pushed to the limit with multi-tasking a part of everyday life. The question is- how can we reduce the stress and pressures placed upon these staff?

Integrated Wireless(IW) understand this and the solution is to streamline communications. In fact, IW have a team of dedicated staff focused on the development of software and hardware systems designed to do just that.

ENSUREtelpage is the most recent development to compliment existing software modules run through DURAsuite- IW's alarm management system. This telephone paging application will page specific personnel through pre-defined numbers and messages. It operates through ordinary telephone lines and alarms can be raised with the push of a button, allowing for improved work flows.

For more information on this and other solutions designed to increase hospital efficiencies, click here!

Paramedics Cry for Help Falls on Deaf Ears

Paramedics are the unsung heroes of our communities who spend their lives helping those in need. Unfortunately, they are often called to very confronting situations where alcohol and drugs are involved. This can result in unreasonable aggression and attacks on paramedics- as was recently the case with Ambulance Tasmania.

In early July 2012 two ambulance officers were called to a scene in the South of Tasmania, where bystanders began verbally abusing officers and smashing ambulance windows. The officers took refuge in their vehicle and hit the duress alarm, but no-one came. Why? The alarm system failed and the message was never received by the communications centre.

Tasmanian health union member Tim Jacobson said, "in this particular case it's [duress system] fallen over, it's fallen over previously and obviously Ambulance Tasmania needs to ensure that the system is stable”. According to Jacobson, ambulance officers are reporting incidents weekly.

As a duress provider, Integrated Wireless (IW) offer a complete range of duress alarm solutions, including wide-area duress. This particular solution uses GPS satellite coordinates to attain location and the device enables voice communications. All data is time and date stamped for post-incident reporting.

IW's Teltonika- wide-area duress solution

For more information and to speak to one of our sales representatives across Australia, click here!

Ekahau Release New L4 WiFi Tag

International Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) provider Ekahau have recently released the L4 WiFi computer tag, designed to prevent laptop loss and theft.

Business critical and sensitive information is often stored on laptops. Whether it's patient healthcare information or news regarding government entities, vital information can be lost and it happens more regularly than you think.

This new L4 tag fits into the ExpressCard slot of the laptop and contains a built in rechargeable battery which runs for weeks even when the laptop is tuned off. When the laptop is on, the battery is charged to full capacity.

The L4 tag comes equip with a motion sensor and tamper proofing, sending an alarm to appropriate stakeholders when the tag is removed from the device.

As this tag uses any existing WiFi network to operate and track the device when it leaves predefined boundaries, no additional infrastructure is required keeping costs to a minimum.

For product pricing and specifications, contact us!

Ascom Acquire GE Healthcare's Nurse Call Division

Ascom, a leading provider of mission-critical communications worldwide, has broadened it's empire through acquiring GE Healthcare's Nurse Call business in June of this year.

GE Healthcare is a leading nurse call supplier in North America with revenues in excess of USD 20 million in 2011. This acquisition gives Ascom the opportunity to penetrate the lucrative North American market as well as gain intellectual property through retaining existing GE employees. As a result, a combined offering can be created with features and functionality more closely aligned to customer needs.

Fritz Mumenthaler, CEO of Ascom, says: “Ascom is very pleased to have acquired a business with such a good strategic fit. This transaction represents the next step in building and strengthening the leading position of our Wireless Solutions Division in the healthcare communications market”.

For a full range of Ascom products distributed throughout Australia, click here.