Ascom Sign Retail Giant

This month Ascom have signed a significant 5-year deal to refresh the wireless telephone fleet of one of the UK's largest retailers in a deal that extended the mutual 20 year relationship.

Ascom understands retailers are under constant pressure to provide outstanding customer service and minimise business costs. With pressures being placed on ways to improve responsiveness and provide greater levels of efficiency, Ascom have helped by enabling Floor Managers, Department Managers and Floor Runners to be easily contacted whilst on the move.

The strategy includes upgrading to VoWiFi in the large stores with the Ascom i62 WiFi handset and the refreshing of the in situ DECT handsets at the remaining stores with the Ascom d81 handsets.

i62/d81

 The Ascom i62 phone was the first to handle 802.11 a/b/g and n. This handset supports voice over the WiFi network without degrading the performance of an existing .11n network capacity.

The Ascom d81 phone is Ascom's most robust handset yet. It can be used in the most rugged environments over a DECT network and features advanced functions such as a man-down and no-movement alarm.

Integrated Wireless are the sole distributors of Ascom products throughout APAC, providing 24x7 support to some of Australia's busiest hospitals, aged care facilities, retailers, educational institutions, corrective facilities and industrial giants.

 
For product and pricing information, click here!

BOC Requirements Met

Integrated Wireless (IW) have been working with BOC sites Australia-wide for many years to reduce risks associated with those employees working alone. BOC came to IW looking for:

• A solution to provide lone workers with the ability to raise duress and man-down alarms from remote locations
• Alarms to be sent to a central location and regular messages sent to the worker 
• An automatic alarm to be raised should be employee not respond to a message 
• The solution to be Intrinsically Safe (IS) and certified to Australian Standards
• The ability to control the security gates remotely during any emergency situation 

By Integrating Ascom’s specialised 9d23 Intrinsically Safe Protector handsets and DURAsuite alarm management application with the existing PLC system (Programmable Logic Controller), Integrated Wireless delivered a solution that enabled BOC’s lone workers to be “supervised” from a central location while at remote facilities.

The existing PLC system was configured so that when a lone worker arrived at a remote facility the PLC would instruct the DURAsuite alarm management system to automatically generate messages at pre-defined time intervals and send them to the lone workers phone. If the lone worker fails to respond to a message the DURAsuite alarm management system notifies the PLC system of this and an alarm is instantaneously transmitted to a central monitoring station which then initiates a process to check on the status of the lone worker. Similarly if a “duress” or “man-down” alarm is raised from the phone by the lone worker, the central monitoring station is informed via the PLC system. 

  

 In addition the lone worker can control the opening and closing of the access gates from their 9d23 Protector phone from anywhere on the facility. As the phones are connected to the on-site telephone system (PBX), the lone workers have full telephone communications capability while on site. The Ascom 9d23 Intrinsically Safe Protector handset is compliant with the global IECEx standard for Intrinsic Safety, which is in turn compliant with the Australian standards.

"Integrated Wireless (IW) have been long-time suppliers of our man-down alarm solutions. They have continually met business requirements and are prevalent in more than 20 BOC sites Australia-wide. IW's solutions provide our employees with the confidence to complete tasks successfully while reducing business costs."

- Don Anson, Superintendent, BOC Cryocentre Facility

For more information regarding our lone-worker alarm solutions, click here!

Correctional Services Healthcare Summit

According to the American Correctional Officer Intelligence Network, correctional officers (CO's) in the US have the second highest mortality rate of any occupation. 33% of violence in prisons is directed towards CO's resulting in high stress and anxiety levels.

The recent appearance of Integrated Wireless (IW) at the 3^rd Annual Correctional Services Healthcare Summit in Melbourne demonstrated the company's commitment to reducing the figures mentioned above.

The main theme revolved around primary healthcare in correctional facilities with impressive speakers from across the nation and abroad. Particularly interesting were presentations from SA Prison Health Service and GEO Care with supporting case studies.

Through various discussions over the two-day event, a lack of duress functionality in many facilities across Australia became apparent.

Integrated Wireless specialise in duress alarm management in a bid to decrease avoidable injury and death in corrective environments. IW's solutions are deployed in some of the nation's busiest facilities throughout the APAC region with 24x7 support should the need arise.

To read more about Integrated Wireless and the solutions provided, click here!

Woman Attempts to Steal Newborn Baby

According to a report by International Social Services, Australia has the highest per capita rate of international infant abductions in the world. Add to that those newborn babies switched at birth and the numbers begin to stack up.

Grisel Ramirez, 48, recently impersonated a nurse in a Californian hospital in an attempt to abduct a newborn baby. Ramirez, dressed in medical scrubs, entered the mother's room and told her to take a shower while she watched the baby. The mother complied and seconds later Ramirez left the room with the baby in a tote bag.

Luckily, the baby was wearing a Secure Care infant protection tag, alerting staff when it passed the doorway. Ramirez was immediately detained and is being held without bail.

Integrated Wireless are the Australian distributors of Secure Care products and have deployments in some of Australia's busiest hospitals. The Infant Protection System (IPS) prevents both theft and mistaken identity of newborn babies using WiFi baby tags attached to the ankle. This tag triggers an alarm when tampered with or when crossing a virtual WiFi boundary.

For pricing and information on infant protection solutions, click here!

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!