Madrid Hospital Improves Employee Safety, Security With Real-Time Location System

  • Aug 04, 2008

Ekahau Inc., a provider of Wi-Fi-based Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS), recently announced that the 12 de Octubre Hospital in Madrid, Spain, has installed a Wi-Fi-based location tracking solution that is designed to improve security and safety of its emergency room employees.

The solution, deployed by Indra, is built on the Ekahau Positioning Engine, a software-based location server that leverages existing enterprise Wi-Fi infrastructure for location tracking.

"The Ekahau Positioning Engine helps hospitals capitalize on their existing Wi-Fi infrastructure," said Antti Korhonen, president and CEO of Ekahau. "Not only can they quickly and cost-effectively deploy new applications -- like the Indra's panic button application -- but new applications can easily be added to improve reporting, compliance and workflow within a healthcare setting."

With the deployment, the 12 de Octubre Hospital will provide its emergency room personnel with Ekahau Wi-Fi tags that include a "panic button" that can be pushed in the event of a security concern, such as assault or robbery. This panic button application will alert the hospital's security department, enabling them to know exactly where the incident has occurred and respond promptly.

The panic button application in use at 12 de Octubre Hospital is just one module of the Indra Localiza Suite, which is based on the Ekahau Positioning Engine. The solution also enables hospitals to use the same Wi-Fi infrastructure to create secure access zones within a building. By doing this, users can detect unauthorized access to restricted areas and track the location of assets to prevent loss or theft of critical equipment. Additionally, the Ekahau location tracking solution can be integrated with IP telephony systems, enabling users to receive alerts and manage the system from a Wi-Fi smartphone or dual-mode GSM/Wi-Fi phone.

"Ekahau RTLS provided our development team with one of the most powerful and flexible API software interfaces, enabling us to quickly and easily integrate the Ekahau Positioning Engine into our application layer," said Jose Antelo, responsible for Solutions Development in Corporate Networking at Indra. "Another advantage to partnering with Ekahau is that its solution provides the best level of accuracy available in the market over standard WLAN access points and requires no additional infrastructure deployment to track assets down to the room level."

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