Ekahau: RTLS & Safety

Ekahau have created a list of ways that RTLS (Real-Time Location Systems) can help manage safety for all stakeholders within a hospital setting. Click below for the full list:

•  8 ways to help manage hospital safety

 
Integrated Wireless partner with Ekahau to provide WiFi tracking solutions to the healthcare industry in Australia.

 Get in touch to discuss past deployments and how we can assist your facility.

Integrated Wireless Achieves ISO13485:2003 Certification

Integrated Wireless (IW) is proud to announce that it has now achieved certification for ISO13485:2003. This is a global quality management standard for medical devices and was required to support IW's partnership with GE Healthcare for the supply, installation and maintenance of Ascom's Multi-Media Gateway (MMG).

This enables hospitals to customise, filter and send secondary alarms to inform healthcare professionals of particular medical related events captured by the GEHealthcare CARESCAPE Network. The alarm is forwarded to Ascom handsets or a wide variety of devices, including pagers, mobile handsets and/or LED signs.

Secondary alarm forwarded to Ascom i62

For more information on patient monitoring systems, click here!

Emergency Departments- Efficiency Is The Buzzword

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. That is the buzzword of this millennium and for good reason. Having grown up in a family full of nurses, I have seen first hand the stress placed on those in this industry. Nurses are run off their feet as a lack of bed's result in patient overflow, and visitors become agitated as they want constant updates on their loved ones. The question is, how can we alleviate some of this pressure and allow nurses to focus solely on patient care?

Last week Integrated Wireless (IW) attended the Timely Access to Emergency Department (ED) Conference held at the Bayview Boulevard Hotel, Sydney. This event attracted patient flow staff from all over the country to cover the above question and gave us an opportunity to discuss current needs and trends affecting ED's. Some of these include:

• National Emergency Access Target (NEAT)
• Driving efficiencies through various methods
• Strategies to improve flow during a time of growth
  
  

IW Sales Executive Andrew Weiss

IW have spent decades developing solutions to help ED efficiency and have never been more excited with what we have today. If you ask any of the top competing companies in the world what drives them to continually develop and re-develop based on market needs, it will be about more than money. There will be a desire to assist in solving the world's problems, however large or small that particular problem may be.

Our current solution streamlines communication between staff in ED, resulting in more time to focus on patient needs. Our Ascom handsets are an all-in-one device encompassing voice, text and location-based duress. This allows staff to focus on one device for all their needs rather than various devices such as a phone, pager and duress pendant. To add to this, all nursecall alarms can be sent to specific handsets as text or as a call, depending on the nurses role. This allows the nurse to engage in a two-way conversation with the patient to check the severity of the situation before rushing to the bedside, giving the opportunity to finish the task at hand.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to IW's solutions. For more detailed information including case studies (such as Southern Health in Victoria), free on-site demonstrations and a general education into the role of IT in healthcare, click here!

To contact us immediately, click here.

Skyview High School Approves Ekahau RTLS

Following up on last week's post, Skyview High School has since undergone extensive user acceptance testing in the form of a campus-wide lock-down drill, according to the Ekahau Blog. The Ekahau RTLS WiFi Tag passed with flying colours, with student Toby Anderson commenting “from the time I pulled it [panic switch], to the time the announcement went off, it was probably 15 seconds. And then less than a minute before Officer Ford walked in, so it was very fast”. Police Chief Craig Kingsbury agreed, stating that “there’s no waiting. There’s no explaining. You’re not going to lose precious seconds trying to justify why you need help. Help’s just going to come.”

Ekahau RTLS Badge Tag

When the panic switch or ripcord is pulled by a staff member, a message is sent to all other badge tags on-site and a lock-down is initiated immediately. The school resource officer (and police dispatch) are notified of the location of the tag initiating the alarm, and can immediately respond without confusion. This information is viewed in real-time and every staff member with a tag can be immediately located on a pop-up floor map.

The system has already been in use since its deployment. English teacher Terri Bentley said “I actually used it [Ekahau RTLS] a week ago for a health emergency that happened in my class, and they came really quick for that too. So this is actually the second time I was able to use it, and it was really fascinating”.

Skyview High School is the first of its kind to trial the Badge Tag, with Kingsbury hoping to get Ekahau RTLS into every Idaho school.

For more information on Ekahau's applications in Australia, click here!

Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre Spurs Student Safety Focus

With the recent attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, it has become clear that mass shootings are not a thing of the past. In fact, according to news.com.au, mass shootings in the US have doubled from 4 between 1990-2004 to 8 between 2005-2013. This has not yet been the case in Australia, largely thanks to Howard's gun laws put in place after the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996. Over the past 10 years, however, gun imports have increased steadily, with Australia now replacing the million guns destroyed in '96 (ABC News).

According to 6 News in the US, a resource officer at Skyview High School in Nampa has decided to act, taking student security to the next level. "We wanted to do something where it was not evasive into the school, where we didn't want to create a prison environment for the students,” says resource officer Brad Ford. “We wanted to keep them safe, but at the same time, it's a learning environment. It's a school.". The result? Ekahau.

Ekahau is a specialist WiFi vendor in the US providing WiFi tags worn around the neck to not only raise duress, but also locate the person in duress to within 3 metres. Skyview staff can now lock-down the campus in just four seconds with a simple tug of the device, as well as call for assistance or medical help. 

 

"Parents want to send their kids to the schools to be safe,” says Skyview High School building administrator Will Barber. “They want to trust that when they leave their homes, they're going to return that night. Any time that we can explore an avenue that's going to increase that, is going to be a positive."

Schools in the US are taking a re-active approach to school shootings; Australia now has the chance to be pro-active. Integrated Wireless resell Ekahau products in Australia and offer 24 x 7 support to our customers. If you already have WiFi on-site, we can leverage off that network to operate the Ekahau tags, reducing costs and complexity.

For more information, click here!

To get in touch, click here!

Hospitals Set To Splash Out on IT

According to the Ekahau Blog, the Spring 2013 edition of the Economic Outlook survey states that 43% of hospital executives list IT and telecommunications as their largest capital investment over the coming year.

530 hospital C-suite executives, materials and practice area managers were surveyed who, over time, are coming to terms with the benefits IT in a healthcare setting can provide. Just two years ago, only 21% of hospital executives came to the same conclusion.

Another recent study found that the RTLS (Real-Time Location System) market is expected to mature from $256 million in 2011 to $4 billion in 2022, a 1462.5% growth rate.

Hospitals are becoming increasingly aware of the ROI provided by RTLS, which delivers hospital-wide tracking solutions with business intelligence helping their scheduling, patient care, supply chain process and much more. 

Assuming the WiFi system has been properly configured, assets and people can be tracked anywhere within a facility to within 3 metres, reducing the time spent searching for something in the wrong place. 

Integrated Wireless use Ekahau RTLS to bring these benefits to the Australian health and aged care market. For more information and a free live on-site demonstration, click here!

• Read a recent Ekahau Case Study

 

New Interactive Help Point In Australia

Integrated Wireless (IW) is pleased to announce the launch of it's new Interactive Help Point with multi-touch technology. This product has been developed by IW partner Trans-Data Management (TDM) in the UK, and is available for sale Australia-wide.

The new unit builds on TDM's previous Interactive Help Point using VoIP to provide added functionality and scope. The interactive screen can display the company website of the train operator as well as real-time passenger information including live departure times, delays and journey planning functions. With pinch-to-zoom and swipe action technology, the everyday traveller can navigate through the intuitive interface with ease. 

The Help Point can be monitored and configured remotely and integrates with existing investments such as surveillance and control systems (CCTV and alarms).

There are multiple applications for the Help Point, including:

• Station platforms
• Tourist information
• Journey planners
• City centres
• Emergency assistance
• Service updates

For more information, please visit our website or get in touch with one of our friendly sales representatives.