Saurabh (Bhasin, WCS product line manager at Cisco) and myself hosted a webinar last Monday about the integration between Ekahau Site Survey 5.1 (out in a couple of weeks) and Cisco WCS 7.0 (out already).
In a nutshell, after working on a network plan with ESS 5.1, you can import maps, access points and walls directly to WCS. This cuts down the workload, plus reduces the possibility for human error.
The UK government is planning to require UK mental-health facilities to install RTLS technology. St. Andrew’s Healthcare, the largest Brittish non-profit provider of mental -health services, got proactive on this matter: They installed a Motorola Wi-Fi network and Ekahau RTLS.
The RTLS system, consisting of Ekahau’s tags, location engine, and Vision application, allows the employees to call for help by pushing a button anywhere in the facility. The credit-card sized T301BD tags are carried by the employees on a lanyard. Once fully deployed, the system will consist of around 3,000 Ekahau tags.
The Motorola Wi-Fi system, covering the entire facility, was a convenient choice, and is a combination of infrastructure and Mesh Wi-Fi. The fact that Ethernet cabling is not required for all access points makes the installation easier, and saves some pounds. The Moto Wi-Fi mesh also provides self-healing functionality: If an AP breaks down, the others will take over.
St. Andrews previously had an emergency response system based purely on infrared, but that wasn’t as reliable. Whereas infrared only works in areas covered by the IR transmitters, Ekahau RTLS works anywhere where you have Wi-Fi coverage – which means the entire facility, and even some of the outdoor areas.
In terms of number of RTLS systems being deployed today, my feeling is employee safety is right up there with asset tracking (tracking high-value assets to find them when needed). It’s just that the asset tracking deployments are typically larger in terms of number of tags tracked. One thing is a fact: the market is right now growing at a phenomenal rate – and at Ekahau are happy to be leading the market.
Cheers,
Jussi Kiviniemi
Sr. Product Manager
Ekahau
Apollo Hospitals in India has dramatically improved their patient flow by with help of RTLS (Real-Time Location System).
A short summary:
The problem was really capacity management: A large hospital with 250 patients going through many departments every day caused a lot of unnecessary waiting and wandering around, meaning lost dollars (or rupees actually).
The solution is a system called Patient Mantra, delivered by Icegein, and powered by Ekahau’s RTLS tags and location server. The Patient Mantra system is a smart application layer, taking in patient location and status information, as well as a complete understanding of the hospital processes. With that information, the system optimizes patient flow and capacity planning, resulting in tremendous savings. Plus, the patients can spend more time with their families and less in the hospital waiting room.
When checking in to the hospital, the patient is given a credit-card sized Ekahau RTLS tag, worn on a lanyard. The tag is then linked into the patient’s name and healthcare information. When the patient goes to a certain department, the location information is delivered to the appropriate staff members, letting them know the patient is waiting for certain services. The buttons in the tags are pressed by staff members to indicate, for example, that the patient is now being treated, or has finished the treatment. With this information, important real-time information about wait and treatment times can be analyzed.
If wait or treatment times become overly long, alerts can be given. And if a patient is leaving the facility without completing all the tests, the system can alert the personnel. Of course, patients can also alert the staff should they need urgent assistance.
In addition, thanks to the up-to-date information about the completed processes, the patients can see from the hospital monitors where to go next.
The system also produces useful reports, covering treatment times, wait times, and so forth.
Of course, most of the RTLS deployments we at Ekahau do go “under the radar”, so the public will never know of their existence. Last week, for example, we sold a 15,000 tag system to the middle east, but it’s not publicly announced yet. Since we’re typically not installing additional infrastructure with the RTLS deployments, and the system deployment is pretty quick, the factories producing the tags are working overtime! Exciting times.
Anyhow, the Clarian deployment is just another example where a consortium of large healthcare facilities already has a Wi-Fi network, and has a problem with overly large asset inventory and rental costs, and not being able to find assets when needed (on the hospital floor, and for maintenance). For Clarian, it made perfect sense to deploy Wi-Fi based RTLS.
Clarian is expected to move to other tracking applications as well, including temperature monitoring and patient flow analysis.
Mark your calendars! Also, check out our other Ekahau Site Survey trainings (next one this Wednesday already) at www.ekahau.com/training!
What: Webinar demonstrating Wi-Fi network design & deployment using Ekahau Site Survey with Cisco WCS When: October 25th at 10am pacific US, 1pm Eastern US, 18.00 Central European Time How to participate: Join us on Oct 25th at: https://cisco.webex.com/cisco/onstage/g.php?d=208586440&t=a
Duration: One hour Presenters: Jussi Kiviniemi, Sr Product Manager / Ekahau
Saurabh Bhasin, Sr. Product Line Manager / Cisco Systems
Careful design of Wi-Fi networks is essential, especially when designing for voice and location tracking systems (RTLS). However, the design process does not have to be either difficult or time-consuming. Ekahau Site Survey (ESS) and Cisco Wireless Control System 7.0 to streamline the network planning and deployment process.
This webinar focuses on high-performance Wi-Fi planning and deployment, focusing on how to do things right with ESS and WCS. A live product demo will be presented.
Agenda:
Ekahau Site Survey overview and new features
Cisco WCS overview and new features
High-level user benefits of using ESS and WCS together
Live Demo
Creating a network plan using Ekahau Site Survey
Importing the network plan into WCS
Ekahau HeatMapper, the free Wi-Fi coverage mapping tool for homes and small offices, finally works with 64bit operating systems. In its first 1,5 years of existence, HeatMapper became one of the essential Wi-Fi tools for anyone working with Wi-Fi.
We were actually a bit surprised by how well HeatMapper was received by the public: When the tool came out, we had to up our outgoing bandwidth and reconfigure out servers to handle the increased traffic. Today, the free tool has hundreds of thousands of users, and has received blazing reviews from the Wi-Fi authorities.
A big thank you for all of you who have downloaded HeatMapper! We’ll release new stuff for HeatMapper in 2011 – stay tuned, and let us know what you would like to see.
Ekahau HeatMapper draws Wi-Fi coverage maps, locates access points, and shows AP information in real-time
