San Diego-based Awarepoint Corporation today announced that UCSD Medical Center is significantly expanding its Awarepoint Real-time Location System (RTLS) deployment. Following successful implementation and a fully vetted return on investment at the system’s Thornton facility, the Awarepoint relationship has now been expanded to include its Hillcrest campus, which is the primary hospital for the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. The recently renovated Hillcrest campus is a 386-bed hospital inclusive of nearly 1,000,000 square feet. The expansion to UCSD Medical Center – Hillcrest more than doubles the coverage area and triples the number of equipment assets the Medical Center is wirelessly tracking with Awarepoint’s Active RFID Real-time Location Solution.
“RFID asset tracking success at UCSD Medical Center’s Thornton facility prompted expansion to the larger Hillcrest facility, located nearly 14 miles away. The expansion to Hillcrest also provides UCSD Medical Center the ability to see real-time status and have complete oversight of shared assets between both campuses, which are significant challenges for the Medical Center today,” said Kenny Woods, Senior Vice President of Sales for Awarepoint. Thornton Hospital is UCSD’s 119-bed, 238,792 square foot general medical-surgical facility, and has been live with the Awarepoint Real-time Awareness Solution for more than 18 months.
Tom Hamelin, Director of Perioperative Services, is responsible for sourcing UCSD Medical Center’s Zigbee-based real-time location solution with a goal of addressing several persistent problems relating to asset tracking management, including:
-- Lowering equipment rental costs -- Reducing staff time spent searching for equipment -- Minimizing equipment theft and loss -- Reducing equipment inventory requirements -- Improving equipment maintenance process -- Improving responsiveness to JCAHO and FDA requirements
“The significant challenge common to all of these is timely, reliable locating of important equipment and assets,” said Tom. Tom chose to install the smaller UCSD Medical Center Thornton campus first to quickly provide a quantifiable return on investment. “With the combination of capital equipment expenditure savings and increased demand for asset visibility among staff after the Thornton installation, it was not difficult to get approval to expand into Hillcrest,” continued Tom.
The Awarepoint Real-time Location System was selected because it offers UCSD Medical Center room level location accuracy on an enterprise-wide basis while providing a 100% wireless, non-disruptive installation. Awarepoint’s business model provided the hospital a low cost to start because there were no construction costs and a fully managed service model that allows easy scalability on a per asset per month basis.
About UCSD Medical Center
University of California San Diego (UCSD) operates San Diego’s only academic medical center system of hospitals, clinics and regional specialty centers. The two-hospital system includes UCSD Medical Center-Hillcrest, licensed for 386 beds, and the 119-bed John M. and Sally B. Thornton Hospital, which opened in the summer of 1993. UCSD Medical Center – Hillcrest is the primary hospital for the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. The region’s only academic medical center offers both primary care and specialized services, including a full range: Surgery, Diagnosis and Management of Genetic Diseases, Neurology, Orthopedics and Hyperbaric Medicine Center. The recently renovated 386-bed hospital at UCSD Medical Center – Hillcrest is also the primary site for such regional services as Bone Marrow Transplantation, Regional Burn Center, Infant Special Care Center (NICU), UCSD’s Birth Center, the County’s Only Level I Trauma Center and the National Institutes of Health-Designated Clinical Research Center
About Awarepoint
Awarepoint’s Active RFID technologies and real time location systems (RTLSs) include its real time awareness platform, firmware, RFID tags, sensors, and bridges. Awarepoint’s technologies collect raw sensor data and transform that data into high-value positioning information that can be used to add location awareness to a variety of healthcare, manufacturing, security and other applications. Requiring no hard wiring, Awarepoint’s “plug and track” network is a fully managed service, including hardware, software, remote monitoring and maintenance. The company is headquartered in San Diego, California and serves hospitals across the United States through a national sales and operations workforce. Track us down at www.awarepoint.com.
Contact: Xenia Moore Moore Media Relations Email Contact Phone 619-275-0185 Fax 619-374-2596 Valerie Fritz Awarepoint® Email Contact Phone 858-345-5009 Fax 858-535-1808
SOURCE: Awarepoint
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