Rockford Memorial to save big with Wi-Fi tracking

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: JOANIE WEXLER ON WIRELESS IN THE
ENTERPRISE
10/19/05
Today's focus: Rockford Memorial to save big with Wi-Fi
tracking

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Hospital lassos assets with Wi-Fi net
* Links related to Wireless in the Enterprise
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Rockford Memorial to save big with Wi-Fi
tracking

By Joanie Wexler

Have you ever figured out what it costs over time just to look
for items you have misplaced? Gary Bayston at Rockford Memorial
Hospital has.

The hospital's manager of biomedical engineering calculates
that, conservatively, the 396-bed facility in Rockford, Ill.,
loses $4,000 per day, or nearly $1.5 million per year, in
productivity alone just trying to find wayward mobile medical
equipment. This is the value Bayston places on 7,760 minutes
each month that nurses, support staff and other hospital
personnel spend tracking down beds, ventilators, wheelchairs,
intravenous pumps and other equipment.

So Rockford's biomedical engineering and networking departments
have teamed on an asset-tracking project that combines the
hospital's existing Cisco Wi-Fi network, PanGo Networks'
location-tracking application and Four Rivers' asset management
system.

The short-term goals are to have equipment at the ready to treat
patients efficiently, find equipment when it's due for
servicing, avoid replacing lost items and to lower
equipment-rental costs, says Bayston.

Eventually, the system might be applied to tracking Alzheimer's
patients and infants.

So far, the biomed group has affixed PanGo Wi-Fi tags to 20
ventilators across three departments and aims to tag 3,000 to
4,000 pieces of mobile equipment within the next two years or
so. A special "location site survey" must be conducted apart
from the Wi-Fi transmission site survey for the application to
work, and Bayston says he intends to survey the rest of the
hospital Nov. 1.

The PanGo Locator tags are active tags, in that they power
themselves (battery life equals one to two years) and send an
update to the PanGo database via the Wi-Fi network every time a
tagged item moves. An update is also sent to the Four Rivers
work order-tracking database (PanGo and Four Rivers partnered to
write interfaces between the two apps).

Biomed uses the Four Rivers application for a full history of
all asset information, now including location; nurses and others
use the PanGo application to see, right on a monitor, exactly
where assets are, as they are represented by realistic icons. As
a ventilator moves, for example, its associated icon
correspondingly traverses the screen, Bayston says.

There were some challenges with the installation: Rockford's
manager of networking and data security Joe Granneman will
discuss those next time.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. Cisco finally brings security push to LAN
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwir9081>
2. Nortel replaces CEO Bill Owens
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwir9214>
3. Help Desk: When the Windows VPN doesn't work
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwir9215>
4. Microsoft cuts costs of virtual servers
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwir9216>
5. WiMAX just around the corner
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlwir9217>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Joanie Wexler

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology
writer/editor in California's Silicon Valley who has spent most
of her career analyzing trends and news in the computer
networking industry. She welcomes your comments on the articles
published in this newsletter, as well as your ideas for future
article topics. Reach her at <mailto:joanie@jwexler.com>.
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Wireless technology is evolving quickly. Find out how to pick
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FEATURED READER RESOURCE

Network World New Data Center: Spotlight on Advanced IP

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