14th June 2007

AeroScout a provider of Wi-Fi-based Active RFID solutions, has announced an innovative pilot project with Hospital St. Louis, Luxembourg’s largest hospital in the North to track patients, staff and hospital assets. The primary purpose of the installation is to provide greater protection to high-risk dementia patients, keeping them safely within the hospital grounds and in close range of nurses and caregivers.

“We have a high ratio of caregivers to patients, but have always been aware of the need for additional measures when it comes to tracking patient movements around the hospital to maintain their safety and well-being,” said Georges Wolfers, Director of ICT at Hospital St. Louis. “AeroScout offered the most comprehensive solution to our requirements with a user-friendly and scalable Wi-Fi-based solution, and we are excited by its potential to improve our high level of patient care.”

AeroScout will provide Hospital St. Louis with its industry-leading Wi-Fi-based Active RFID tags along with enterprise-level management software and advanced hardware products for asset and people tracking. These products utilize the Cisco Unified Wireless Network in place at the hospital for a single network that provides voice, data and location information.

The AeroScout T2 tags, which have more than four years of battery life, are worn by patients or attached to hospital equipment, and emit a signal which is detected and accurately located by the hospital’s Cisco Unified Wireless Network. Location and status data from these tags is then sent to AeroScout’s MobileView software and integrated with interactive maps and detailed information. This will allow the hospital to search for and identify at-risk patients in real-time, over any Web browser. The AeroScout system can also trigger automated alerts based on movement and location, immediately sending an email, page or voice message to staff when a patient leaves a designated area. AeroScout Exciters provide precision detection at doorways, exits and other choke points.

“Hospital St. Louis is pioneering a new level of patient care, and we’re excited to work with the institution as it explores the benefits of Wi-Fi-based Active RFID,” said Andris Berzins, Managing Director, EMEA at AeroScout. “We see strong demand for innovative tracking solutions in the European healthcare market, and this installation is further proof of our intent to maximize these opportunities.”

The AeroScout solution is currently utilized to track patients in need of heightened monitoring levels, as well as nursing staff and various hospital assets. Based on the success of the initial implementation, Hospital St. Louis is deploying tags for patient-critical medical equipment such as infusion pumps, wheel chairs, and more to improve utilization of these high-value assets.

“Hospitals have hundreds of assets that are critical to their successful operation and it can take a significant amount of time to locate these assets when needed,” said Richard Roberts, director of wireless business development at Cisco. “Location-based services, such as the system deployed by Hospital St. Louis, can help improve patient care and help reduce costs with a real-time view of where their patients and assets are located.”

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