Ekahau Demonstrates Blood Cooler, Medication Cart, and Food Services Tracking and Management System at AHRMM 2011

AHRMM, Massachusetts, August 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

RTLS Tracks Location and Temperature of Perishables During Transport and Storage

Ekahau Inc., the worldwide leader in high performance Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), announced today that a monitoring system for blood, food and pharmacy orders developed at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center will operate on Ekahau's RTLS technology. The system, called Time Temp Trac, can be used to track the location, movement and validation time of perishable items such as blood, food and pharmacy orders during transport and storage. Alerts can be sent to staff via mobile phone or pager if Items become compromised due to fluctuating temperatures.

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Ron Noel of Time Temp Trac, a co-inventor of the system at Wake Forest Baptist, will be in Ekahau's booth 1139 at AHRMM 2011.

"Because blood, dietary items, and certain medications all have a very limited time to be administered to the patient, we have devised a method to use real-time location solutions (RTLS) to provide the needed data about these items. By outfitting a cooler with Ekahau's Wi-Fi tag, we are able to determine how long a unit of blood has been out of the blood bank. We can track the item's location anywhere in the coverage area.  Dietary carts and pharmacy orders are tracked in a similar fashion," Noel stated.  "Ekahau software can automatically alert staff when the validated time or temperature limit is approaching."

The location, movement and validation time for each blood cooler is displayed on a computer monitor at the control desk for the department as well as transmitted to Ekahau's Wi-Fi Pagers anywhere in the hospital. While developed primarily to track blood bank coolers, the system can be adapted for use by food services to monitor the meal delivery time and to audit the temperature of items served to patients. Also, pharmacies can ensure that time-sensitive medications are delivered in the required time.

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 http://www.ekahau.com.