InnerWireless® RF Location System Enables Hospitals To Accurately Track Assets For Approximately One-Third The Cost Of Alternative Systems

New system uses open wireless standards to provide high-assurance location accuracy without increasing 802.11 wireless infrastructure deployment densities

RICHARDSON, Texas - Nov. 9, 2005 – A new technology from InnerWireless®, Inc., leading provider of in-building wireless systems, will allow healthcare organizations to positively impact patient safety and hospital productivity by accurately locating and optimally utilizing clinical assets – medical equipment and care givers. The InnerWireless RF (radio frequency) location system technology can be rapidly adopted by hospitals because virtually no data or power cables are pulled when installing the system – making installation simple, fast, scalable, and minimizing infection control issues. Both tags and RF infrastructure are optimized using the 802.15.4 wireless communications standard, thus avoiding the IP address proliferation that piggybacking on the hospitals’ existing 802.11 wireless data networks would cause. InnerWireless’ industry leading economics will significantly lower the burden of the hospital’s project funding approval process.

High-assurance location services are needed in hospitals because, all too often, medical equipment cannot be readily located. “Unfound” medical equipment jeopardizes patient care. It also degrades hospitals’ financial situation because, knowing that equipment is difficult to locate, hospitals routinely purchase more equipment than they need. Hospitals need to quickly locate equipment and clinical personnel so they can be matched with patients and their immediate healthcare needs.

“InnerWireless is bringing high-assurance location services indoors in the same way that GPS did for transportation. We tell you where your clinical asset is, not where it might be,” said Ed Cantwell, president, CEO and chairman of InnerWireless. “Every hospital CIO and clinician we know has expressed frustration that they can’t procure a location solution that is cost effective, easy to implement, and highly accurate. The InnerWireless location technology meets this most pressing healthcare need.”

Key advantages of the InnerWireless location system:

• ROI/VOI –short-term ROI delivered through improved asset utilization (less lost/misplaced equipment, and less “over-buying” of assets to cover that shortfall); and ongoing VOI by integrating with workflow optimization solutions (matching medical equipment with the clinicians and patients who need it).
• Open wireless standard – by using 802.15.4 the InnerWireless location system uses a reliable, low-power standard to provide untethered RF infrastructure, and tags with healthcare optimized functions, form factors, and long battery life all at low cost.
• Installation – this truly wireless RF system requires virtually no cables, so its RF infrastructure is as easy to install as a home’s smoke detector. A two-person team can install and make fully operational an InnerWireless location system within one eight-hour-shift per hospital department.
• Scalability – the InnerWireless location system scales seamlessly without major cost breakpoints, enabling a hospital to install the system and add tags when, where, and how it wants.
• Economics – the InnerWireless location system directly benefits from mass market production of 802.15.4 silicon chip sets, allowing a low cost-of-entry and flexibility in the business relationship between the customer and InnerWireless.
• Performance – customers are assured that InnerWireless RF location system technology will deliver its high-assurance location accuracy because it builds on InnerWireless’ superior in-building RF engineering core competency.

Alastair B. Westgarth, senior vice president of product line management for InnerWireless, said the 802.15.4 wireless standard was chosen because InnerWireless believes it uniquely enables industry leading cost, location assurance, and future integration of tags directly into clinical devices.

“Many vendors are developing proprietary, closed-standard location systems that remain expensive and are inflexible. Alternatively, others propose tracking thousands of tags via the hospital’s 802.11 network, which will unnecessarily overburden a network that already shoulders a heavy load for hospitals,” Westgarth said. “The open 802.15.4 standard seamlessly coexists with the hospital’s 802.11 networks. It provides a reliable, easy to deploy, and high-assurance location system that
today’s hospitals want and need. The InnerWireless location system supports our mission of helping hospitals develop their own 21st century wireless ecosystem.”

About InnerWireless
InnerWireless® deploys its Medical-grade Wireless Utility in hospitals and healthcare-related facilities to support a full range of wireless services and applications. InnerWireless, which guarantees wireless coverage inside buildings ranging in size up to 10 million square feet, is properly engineered to accommodate wireless systems essential for interpersonal communications (including PCS/cellular, messaging/personal data, enterprise voice, and paging); clinical operations (including wireless infusion therapy/medical administration, enterprise/clinical data, portable patient monitoring, and people and asset tracking); and building operations (including building automation, security and first-responder communications, and push-to-talk radios). For more information about InnerWireless, see www.InnerWireless.com.