Ekahau RTLS Helps Finnish Regional Hospital District to Streamline Work-Flow and Improve Patient Care

SOSTERI, has deployed an Ekahau Real-time Location System (RTLS) in the Savonlinna Central Hospital to improve efficiencies and the security of staff and assets. With Ekahau RTLS, the hospital staff has complete visibility into the location and status of assets and staff members. The system is also being rolled-out for patient tracking and safety in several phases.

According to Antti Kaipainen, the IT Systems Architect for SOSTERI, "the RTLS system we launched this past summer is allowing our staff members to dedicate more time to patient care. As an example, since we have RTLS tags on our equipment, staff members can now spend less time searching our campus. Staff safety has been improved as well, by using wearable RTLS tags that allow staff members to call for help. For example, nearby fellow employees are alerted if a patient behaves aggressively towards a caregiver."

The RTLS system is being expanded from the main hospital to outlying clinics and ultimately the entire region. SOSTERI has also been testing the system in their long-term care facilities for patient and staff safety alerting with positive results.

"The Eastern Savo Region Hospital District is leveraging this new technology with determination. The efficiencies in work-flow improvements are significant. By following the system reports, bottlenecks are easily found and eliminated," said Juhani Ojala, Region Manager for the Nordic Countries for Ekahau.

Patient tracking in the hospital is being used to alert if wandering patients enter a restricted area or leave a designated area. By continuously monitoring the patient's location, the RTLS system is able to alert and inform hospital staff on the location of any given patient. The next step in patient tracking will include providing automated navigation assistance to the patients in the hospital.

"Outpatients who come in for a doctor appointment will be given a small RTLS tag. With this tag and interactive map displays in the hospital, the patient will be able to find their way to the right location in the hospital while the doctors will know where the patients are at all times. This will reduce both the wait times incurred by patients as well as doctors." said Antti Kaipainen.

Ekahau is a world-wide pioneer in providing real-time location systems to the healthcare industry with over 300 healthcare installations. Around half of the hospital districts in Finland have either deployed, or are piloting the Ekahau RTLS system for tracking assets and patients, or providing staff-safety solutions.

The Ekahau RTLS system leverages a hospital's existing Wi-Fi network and does not thus require the installation of a proprietary or dedicated radio network for location tracking. The high location accuracy derived from the Wi-Fi network coupled with an easy installation process that allows hospitals to turn on the system in a matter of days. The applications for RTLS in the healthcare industry are very broad allowing hospitals to leverage their RTLS investment for multiple use-cases and across multiple departments.

The SOSTERI RTLS system was deployed in collaboration with Fujitsu Services of Finland. Fujitsu has made the Ekahau RTLS system a part of its managed services offering to SOSTERI. Ekahau is also collaborating with Tieto, a major Finnish systems integrator, on developing SOSTERI's patient tracking solutions.

About Ekahau Inc.
Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions. Ekahau's customers, including several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau’s solutions are being used in more than 300 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturing, retail and industrial companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S.-based corporation, with headquarters in Reston, Va., and other offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Helsinki, Finland; Tokyo; and Hong Kong. For more information about Ekahau, please visit www.ekahau.com.

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