Responder IV/5 Integrated Nurse Call Features Elpas RTLS Functionality

Visonic Technologies and Rauland-Borg announce the interoperability of Elpas RTLS technology with legacy Responder IV Nurse Call installations. Thanks to Responder 5’s new interoperable platform, hospitals implementing the Network Adaptor Module (NAM) to update their Responder IV installations can now utilize the open integrations functionality of Responder 5 Software to add Elpas RTLS technology. Now Responder IV installations can support real-time staff presence functionality throughout the hospital to room and sub-room level accuracy, automatic visual indication that a patient’s needs are being responded to and automatic nurse call cancellation.

Hospitals may easily leverage their Elpas RTLS investment to enhance other areas of patient and personnel safety including Infant/Baby Protection in maternity wards, Staff Attack/Duress Alerting and Wandering Patient Supervision. Elpas Active RFID/RTLS can also be scaled to Manage Medical Assets in order to reduce shrinkage and lower maintenance related labor costs without degradation to nurse call functionality.

London School of Hygiene Researchers Select Elpas for Behavior Pilot Study

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) have selected Elpas RTLS for a pilot study of personal hygiene behavior in the home. Elpas RTLS will be used to determine whether real-time location data will be able to unobtrusively provide accurate information about an individual’s every day hygiene activities over extended periods of time.

 The selected Elpas Hygiene Monitoring Solution combines Active RFID Wrist and Asset Tags, RF Tracking Readers and LF Exciters to accurately define sub-room areas such as bathroom sinks, toilets and showers. The tags when worn by the participants and attached to various home hygiene objects such as toothpaste and soap dispensers will enable researchers to infer behavior practices based on the simultaneous co-location of the participant and the tagged hygiene objects.

 Elpas was selected from other competing RTLS systems due to its ability to identify key behaviors of multiple people within a household, by locating people and objects to small zones within rooms. Elpas was also able to provide application specific Active RFID Tags with a long battery life (to avoid the need to interact with participants on a regular basis to change batteries), ability to access the data remotely, and being relatively cost effective compared to other options.

Elpas RTLS will provide behavioral measurement reports relating to the daily hygiene activities (such as hand washing, bathing, toilet usage, oral hygiene and vitamin ingestion by family member, location and time). Researchers also intend to use Elpas  to investigate ways to promote healthy habits as a way to achieving sustainable improvements to health related behaviors.

Stan Getz, New Sales Manager for VT

Visonic Technologies today announces the appointment of Mr. Stan Getz as Regional Sales Manager for the Western United States as well as the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. In his new capacity, Mr. Getz will be responsible for the promotion, sale and support of VT’s Active RFID/RTLS Safety, Security and Visibility Solutions to VT’s network of resellers, system integrators and end users. While primarily focusing on acute healthcare, Mr. Getz will also support VT’s marketing and sales strategies of Elpas RTLS and SpiderAlert Emergency Signaling Solutions into assisted living facilities, museums, prisons and intelligent building environments.

 Before joining Visonic Technologies, Mr. Getz recently served as a Regional Sales VP at Intelligent InSites. His background also includes extensive western regional sales management experience with Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS).

Elpas RTLS Now Includes Wireless Temperature Monitoring

The new Elpas Temperature Monitoring Solution provides hospitals with a cost-effective, automated way to remotely monitor environmental sensitive medical assets or environments that require strict temperature range compliance for patient care and safety.

Elpas Temperature Monitoring enables hospitals to automate their temperature reporting protocols and practices (including the storage of temperature readings, triggered alerts and staff response logs). The solution supports automatic temperature-triggered alert notification options plus user customizable reports for analyzing temperature and deviation trends.

The Elpas Temperature Monitoring Solution utilizes the all new IP-64 water-rated, refrigerator mountable Elpas Temperature Sensor, which features an internal thermistor for the wireless monitoring of ambient temperatures. The sensor transmits real-time, location defined temperature readings through the Elpas Ethernet enabled RTLS infrastructure using standard wired or wireless Ethernet technologies to VT’s Eiris Active RFID/RTLS Monitoring Platform or to other networked hospital management systems. The sensor also features wireless call-button functionality to report preconfigured maintenance messages plus remote device supervision to ensure complete field reliability.

VT Adds DACH Region Sales Manager

VT has appointed Dirk Becker as Sales Manager for the DACH region (Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland). In his new capacity, Mr. Becker will be responsible for developing sales channels and partnerships as well as cultivating multi-level relationships with new and existing customers.

Mr. Becker brings with him more than fifteen years of sales and business development experience in the fields of information technology video communication, unified collaboration as well as data center solutions. Before joining Visonic Technologies, Becker has held sales representative roles with Teklogix GmbH (today known as PSION-Teklogix) and Rodata Barcode AG and has also held sales managerial roles with Ezenia! International, Arel Communications & Software and Vitec GmbH. Mr. Becker has also been with PlateSpin ULC, a Novell Company, where he served as a DACH region Enterprise Account Manager.

Mr. Becker lives in Konstanz, Germany in the Lake Constance region of Germany, near the Swiss border.

VT Adds New Elpas Active RFID Tags

New versions of the Elpas Healthcare Position Tag and the Elpas Active Identity Badge have been factory configured to store the ID of the last LF Field that the devices have passed through. This enables ELC Controllers to support RTLS button-press based Elpas Healthcare  Safety Solutions (such as wireless duress alerting) using strategically placed LF Exciters rather than having to install IR Readers in every room.

Consequently when the tag’s call-button is pressed, the tag will transmit a data message containing the tag ID, the button-press event and the last LF ID which the ELC can process to determine the location of the duress call.

By combining the Last LF tags, ELCs and the new Elpas Messaging Gateway, powerful, distributed and robust wireless button-press safety solutions may be achieved for a very affordable price.

Should you require further information, consult your local Visonic Technologies Representative for additional details.

VT Upgrades Eiris Tracking and Management Software

EIRIS 4.7.1 is now available for customer deployment. This new release of our field-proven Eiris Tracking and Management Software has undergone a substantial upgrade in functionality including an abundance of new bundled features.

Using customer feedback collected by our professional services group over the past year, Eiris V 4.7.1 now provides a richer collection of tools to easily configure, manage and use VT’s range of unified and hybrid Elpas, SpiderAlert and VisAccess Safety, Security and Visibility Solutions.

Key new features and capabilities in Eiris 4.7.1  included:

• Comprehensive support for hybrid Elpas installations that include both legacy LON and Elpas2 (Ethernet) network infrastructure devices. This is useful for scaling/expanding existing LON installations using Elpas Ethernet/RS-485 hardware.
• Optional Visitor Module & Parking Lot extensions for VisAccess installations plus new LF Supervision, and Floor Recovery utilities for Elpas systems.

Now a Wristband with Lock option for the Elpas Heathcare Positioning Tag

VT has added as an accessory for the Elpas Heathcare Positioning Tag a Reusable Wristband with Lock. This new wristband option was designed for Wandering Patient and Patient Tracking Solutions and  is ideal for senior residents or ambulatory patients suffering from Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia who exhibit the tendency to remove their Elpas wrist tags since they see them as unfamiliar.

The Reusable Wristband with Lock is made from safe canvas non-elastic material and is locked around the wrist using a patient safe pin/magnet. When worn the tracking tag may be easily removed from the protected individual’s wrist using a handheld magnetic pin retraction tool.

 Contact your VT Representative for details.

The Elpas Door Kit is Everything You Need for a Single-Door Wandering Patient Starter Solution

The Elpas Door Kit supplies low-cost versatile protection of ambulatory individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia or other high risk residents and patients who exhibit the tendency to wander off unnoticed.

This Wandering Patient Protection Solution permits regular movement of care givers, other residents or family members through a protected doorway while preventing un-supervised ‘Wanderers’ from leaving the protected area. Should these high risk residents or patients approach the door through which they are not allowed to pass unescorted, the solution’s automatic alert functionality immediately triggers.

The Elpas Door Kit highlights VT’s technological commitment to deliver wandering patient protection for smaller healthcare facilities. As an innovative safety and security engineered solution which is easy to install with minimal facility impact, it eliminates the need for a costly dedicated computer server, does not require field programming and is simple to use by all staff members.

The Elpas Door Kit is factory pre-configured to support flexible patient escort alternatives, handle as many patients, residents or escorts as required and supports intelligent alert options. This out-of-the-box solution is easily expandable to cover additional doors, an entire floor, a whole building or a complete campus in order to protect patients and staff members and to manage medical assets without degradation to the core wandering patient functionality.

The Elpas Door Kit is internationally safety compliant and is CE, FCC and IC approved.

Enhanced Elpas Reusable Tag for Infant Protection & High-Risk Patient Applications

VT announces the availability of its enhanced Elpas Active RFID/RTLS Reusable Tag.  The tag’s unique form factor and comfort makes it ideal  for protecting infants from abduction in maternity units or for the monitoring and tracking of high-risk patients who wander.

The tag’s dual technology transmitter emits  radio frequency (RF) messages plus infra-red (IR) messages that can be used to determine the location of the infant or patient to room level and sub-room level precision in open and enclosed indoor spaces without EMF interference to hospital equipment. The tag also has  a low frequency (LF) receiver that supports chokepoint area detection.

The Reusable Tag  supports Elpas2; VT’s new, innovative topology for backhauling RFID/RTLS security and safety solutions over wired or wireless Ethernet/Wi-Fi networks and also complements VT‘s growing portfolio of 433MHz Active RFID/RTLS tags for asset security and utilization, personnel and patient safety and remote sensor applications.