Ekahau will implement the United States is the largest medical real-time locating system

Ohio State University Medical Center (OSUMC) this month will begin installing a set of United States largest medical real-time locating system, using the existing Cisco Wi-Fi infrastructure and Ekahau Wi-Fi labels to locate assets and personnel.

This system will cover 5 million square feet, including more than 40 buildings, system installation will take about three weeks, according to business development manager Tuomo Ekahau Rutanen said.

Once you have completed installation, Rutanen said, the system will initially be only 1,000 asset tag, but in the next two years is expected to apply 15,000 Wi-Fi RFID labels, identification and tracking assets, patients and staff.

The hospital will use its server Engine positioning software Ekahau Positioning to locate the position of each label and, depending on the location information for business analysis.

The hospital was about four years ago began to seek a wireless assets to orientation system, technical director Chad Neal OSUMC.

Initially, the Centre would like to purchase a set of RFID systems, throughout the Center installed Reader, however, so as to be in large OSUMC within the installation system to capture the label ID code and position location is time consuming and costly. If only in the central part of the region to adopt this system is also impractical, Neal said, because when labeling people or goods leave the coverage area, the Center will not be able to track their location.

Final judgment the best OSUMC scheme is the use of the hospital's existing 802.11 Wi-Fi network, however, also aware at that time the technology has not matured.

Therefore, the Medical Center is temporarily stranded RFID plans, waiting for the technology of low cost and efficiency gains. At the same time, the hospital is also upgrading its Wi-Fi infrastructure, installation of nearly 3000 single Cisco Wi-Fi access points and 30 network controller.

September 2009, hospital comparison of the two companies of RTLS programme and concept tests were held, one is the Ekahau.

Hospital in two four-storey application 100 label collection label read accuracy parameter values-for example, when the tab icon displayed on the computer screen, the worker orientation label assets spent many long time shown in the label position and the actual location of distance; will not skip levels, like the actual location is the location in the marked high a layer or a layer lower.

According to Neal said the test display accuracy higher Ekahau programme-label location in 3 m (another 5 m), and service awareness and professional quality is also stronger.

In the next few weeks, once the system software has been installed and tested, Neal said the hospital initially only on the infusion of mercury and other high-priced medical device labeling.

Each piece of equipment is equipped with a T301A Ekahau label. Cisco Wi-Fi node read unique ID code labels, send data to a back-end server. Ekahau Positioning Engine on the server software according to signal strength calculation of the position of the item. Labels can also receive information, such as sending a voice signal received instruction, as alert (for example, if an article should not be used). Center can use Ekahau XML API software according to specific articles of the location to perform business analyses, to leave their region such as equipment, or clean equipment and stain device, enter the laundry area, the system sends an email or text message alerts.

When Medical Center complete the high-priced equipment labeling, Neal said, the next step will be to Arthur G. James Cancer OSUMC hospital beds for labeling, then to the center of neurological and psychiatric hospital patients issued RFID wristband.

The next few years, OSUMC want sensor label tracking of refrigeration equipment and operating temperature of the electric blanket, if the temperature exceeds or falls below the preset threshold, the software sends an alert to authorized users. The hospital also wished to adopt a text transfer function of RFID staff badge.

How to obtain hospital floor plan is a software design of the greatest challenges, Rutanen said.

Ekahau must enter hundreds of computer drawing floor plan. "This is a very significant workload, we hope to finish in three weeks."

In the long term, Neal said he hoped to use the software to develop a warning system that enables hospitals to better planning staff and the location of the device.

However, achieving this goal requires a few years.