Ekahau Inc., the performance leader in Wi-Fi-based Real Time LocationSystems (RTLS), today announced that the Centre de sante et services sociaux(CSSS) de St-Jerome (the St-Jerome health and social services centre), a405-bed multidisciplinary hospital in Quebec, Canada, is utilizing EkahauRTLS to improve patient and staff safety. Ekahau is proud to work with ICTsolution provider and system integrator Bell Canada to deliver an innovativesolution that enables faster response times when patients or staff needassistance. It works by pinpointing their location using the Ekahau T301BDpager tags worn by hospital staff in the hospital's mental health facility.
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The Ekahau tags are part of the Ekahau RTLS solution, an enterprise-gradelocation tracking platform used today by many leading hospitals around theworld. Ekahau RTLS leverages a hospital's existing Wi-Fi network to locatesmall battery-powered tags anywhere within the footprint of the networkwithin a matter of seconds.
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"At the CSSS de St-Jerome, we have a strong belief that cutting-edgetechnologies can help us improve patient and staff care, increase efficiencyand ensure the safety of everyone at our facilities, and we are continuing toseek innovations to support these goals," said Sylvain Leclerc, coordinatorof IT services and telecommunications at the CSSS de St-Jerome. "Our ICTsolution provider and system integrator Bell Canada found the righttechnology to meet our requirements through Ekahau. The Ekahau RTLS and itsbadge tags, which offer two-way communications, are an ideal fit for ourinnovation strategy, allowing us to leverage our existing Wi-Fi network foradvanced location tracking applications."
Ekahau RTLS is the only Wi-Fi-based location tracking solution that canoperate over any Wi-Fi network, regardless of brand or generation. Because itis standards-based, Ekahau RTLS can be quickly deployed in a matter of daysor weeks, eliminating the expense and time required by other systems toinstall readers, cabling, choke points and exciters. Ekahau RTLS provides thebest accuracy in the industry, enabling users to pinpoint location down tothe sub-room level.
The Ekahau T301BD Wi-Fi pager tags are capable of supporting two-waycommunications, enabling users to send and receive text messages. The unitsalso include a dedicated button, which can be triggered in the event of anemergency, to alert staff of the situation and to show them where it ishappening.
"Patient and staff safety is a challenge for the healthcare industry thatcan be addressed with leading-edge technology, such as RTLS," said BernardBarbeau, healthcare sales director for Bell Business Markets. "Ourpartnership with Ekahau allows us to deliver a truly innovative and reliableenterprise-grade RTLS solution to Bell healthcare customers such asSt-Jerome."
The Ekahau RTLS system installed at the CSSS de St-Jerome is used byhospital employees to call for help in emergency situations, such as "codewhite" situations in which a staff member is in danger. Once an individualpulls on the panic switch on the tag, the tag signals an alert through thewireless network to an Ekahau server that calculates the location of thealert and broadcasts it to the other team members through text messaging, andto other systems and devices in the hospital.
"We are pleased to be working with Bell Canada for the CSSS de St-Jeromeon an application that enhances patient care and provides for greater staffsafety throughout the entire facility," said Tuomo Rutanen, senior vicepresident of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development for Ekahau."Ekahau's tags and superior location accuracy combine to deliver astate-of-the-art safety solution for health care facilities around the world."
About Bell
Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers andbusiness with solutions to all their communications needs, including BellMobility wireless, high-speed Bell Internet, Bell TV direct-to-home satellitetelevision, Bell Home phone local and long distance, and IP-broadband andinformation and communications technology (ICT) services. Bell is proud to bea Premier National Partner and the Exclusive Telecommunications Partner tothe Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE). For information onBell's products and services, please visit http://www.bell.ca. For corporateinformation on BCE, please visit http://www.bce.ca.
About the CSSS de St. Jerome
The CSSS de St-Jerome has three missions: operating as a hospital,providing geriatric care and delivering needed community services. Theorganization provides services to a population of 125,000 individuals. The405-bed hospital includes 85 beds that are reserved for in-patient mentalhealth care. For more information, please visit http://www.cdsj.org.
About Ekahau Inc.
Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLSsolutions. Ekahau's RTLS technology is routinely recognized for its superiorperformance in customer benchmarking and competitive evaluations ofWi-Fi-based location tracking solutions. Ekahau's customers, includingseveral Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fibased location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning andoptimization tools. Ekahau's solutions are being used in several hundredhospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturers, mining/oil/gascompanies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners includewireless software developers, leading system integrators and internationalOEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahauis a U.S.-based corporation, with offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Reston, Va.;Helsinki, Finland; and Hong Kong, China. For more information about Ekahau,please visit http://www.ekahau.com.(c) Copyright 2010, Ekahau, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Media Contacts: Juliet Travis Rocket Science PR/Ekahau +1-415-464-8110 x 215 [email protected] Sylvain Leclerc CSSS de St-Jerome +1-450-431-8200 x 2663 [email protected] Julie Smithers Bell Media Relations +1-416-528-9409 [email protected]
SOURCE Ekahau Inc.
