Austrian Hospital chooses Ekahau's RTLS

Thursday 16th September 2010

Ekahau Inc, the worldwide leader in high performance Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that Ekahau is providing the underlying Wi-Fi-based location tracking technology for an emergency call system being utilised in the psychiatric ward at University Hospital of Innsbruck in Austria.

The software-based Ekahau RTLS solution has been integrated into the ProAct personal emergency call system developed by ITH icoserve for the psychiatric unit, which encompasses two seven-story buildings and is served by more than 200 employees.

"Psychiatric units can be dangerous for hospital staff, as patients are sometimes violent and unpredictable. So, when an attack or an escape attempt occurs, there is often not enough time to call for help by conventional means, such as the telephone," said Franz Gruber, chief nurse of the Psychiatric Clinic at University Hospital Innsbruck.

"The ProAct solution using Ekahau RTLS technology enables us to trigger an alarm with the simple push of a button on a staff badge, or even faster by just pulling the tag's lanyard, and quickly and simply conveys information where assistance is needed so those employees who are closest to the incident can respond."

The Ekahau RTLS technology enables the ProAct system to track staff location in real time using the hospital's existing wireless local area network (WLAN) from Cisco. The solution relies on Ekahau's T301BD badge tags, which support two-way text-based communications capabilities and include a panic button for use in emergency situation.

"Ekahau RTLS was a perfect foundation for our ProAct system because it not only supports our initial staff safety application, but it provides us with the flexibility to add other applications in the future that require real-time location tracking – such as asset management, workflow improvements and temperature monitoring," said Andreas Gereke, head of Innovation and Research Solutions at ITH icoserve.

"This system is a great example how ITH icoserve, Ekahau and Cisco can work together to develop a new and innovative solution that improves staff safety and patient care," said Thomas Schwab, manager of Healthcare in Austria for Cisco Systems. "Cisco, as the world wide leading wireless infrastructure provider, is proud to be part of such solutions that will shape the future of healthcare. The healthcare sector is one of the fastest growing markets, with strong impact on economies as well as the quality of people's lives." added Thomas Schwab, Cisco Systems' Manager of Healthcare in Austria.

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