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Ekahau Inc, a Wi-Fi technology company, has announced the completion of a project with Spanish service provider, AT4 wireless to track nursing staff and equipment at the Hospital Alta Resolucion (Benalmadena) in southern Spain.
The hospital, which was recently built to complement the services of a larger neighbouring public hospital in Marbella on the Costa del Sol, features some of the latest technological solutions, including an advanced Wi-Fi network from Cisco Systems Inc. When AT4 wireless was commissioned to install its integrated RFID solutions, it was also approached to create a tracking solution for staff and equipment.
Having viewed several options, the company selected Ekahau as their partner, and deployed the Ekahau RTLS solution, including the Ekahau Positioning Engine and T301 tags, across the hospital campus. The result is a highly effective tracking solution for controlling the movements of valuable portable medical equipment. The hospital administration also required staff to carry wireless tags with a panic button, which when pressed, sends an alarm SMS direct to the hospital’s security centre prompting immediate response direct to the scene of the emergency.
“After some smaller pilot deployments, this was our first larger scale project with Ekahau and it went very well,” said Juan Gonzalez, RTLS project leader of the Engineering and Solutions Division at AT4 wireless. “Ekahau staff provided excellent support and training, as well as help during the implementation phase.”
Gonzalez continued that the regional health authority was now evaluating the progress of the Ekahau implementation at Benalmadena with possible expansion later to its larger hospital site in Marbella.
“This hospital deployment is a very good example of the Ekahau advantage, to be able to deploy a multi-purpose RTLS system over an existing enterprise Wi-Fi network, with a short deployment time and without any additional infrastructure installations,” said Jarmo Ikonen, Ekahau’s director of sales.
