Countdown To HIMSS10!

In less than a week, Awarepoint will be participating in the HIMSS10 Annual Conference and Exhibition, March 1-4, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. Seems like we just got back from Chicago, and I think we’re all hoping for better weather in Atlanta …

Awarepoint customer, Tom Hamelin, Associate Administrator of UCSD Medical Center, and Awarepoint’s Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Dennis O’Leary, are presenting two separate education sessions this year. We promise that although the abstracts were presented nearly a year ago, and the presentations finalized months ago, they will have fresh perspectives to share on the continually evolving market segment of RTLS in healthcare. Here are the details:

HIMSS Educational Session (Event 66):

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 8:30 AM; Convention Center Room B302
Beyond Asset Tracking: Innovative Healthcare Improvement with RTLS Technology
Speaker: Thomas Hamelin, BSN, MSN, MBA, Director of Perioperative Services, UCSD Medical Center

HIMSS Educational Session (Event 156):

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Convention Center Room C102
Enterprise Awareness: Leveraging RTLS for Quality, Safety, Efficiency and Productivity
Speaker: Dennis O’Leary, MD, Chief Strategy Officer, Awarepoint Corporation and President Emeritus, The Joint Commission.

We would love to see HIMSS10 attendees at our "fireside chat" series, hosted daily on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM in Awarepoint’s exhibitor booth #1543. See details below:

Monday’s event will be led by Awarepoint’s Chief Technology Officer Matt Perkins. Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s events, respectively, will feature repeat performances of Tom Hamelin’s and Dr. O’Leary’s morning educational sessions.

Awarepoint’s Fireside Chat Series will provide a hosted cocktail reception and more intimate setting to meet and speak directly with the presenters. Attendees to Awarepoint’s booth will also be entered for a chance to win a $1,500 contribution to their hospital foundation or charity of choice.

For more details on Awarepoint's activities at HIMSS10, here is a link to our press release Awarepoint Networked Real-time Awareness Solutions and RTLS Educational Sessions Offered at the HIMSS10 Conference and Exhibition.

Off to Atlanta on Saturday ... See you there!

Awarepoint History

OUR HISTORY

When Awarepoint was established in 2002, our founders recognized that active RFID technologies had applicability for addressing a wide range of potential needs and buyers in numerous industries – from manufacturing, to healthcare, military applications, building management, security, and much more.

(Click on image to view it full size.)

Awarepoint started in healthcare and as a Wi-Fi company. Our first user was Naval Medical Center San Diego, who was looking for a solution to help them respond to mass casualty and disaster scenarios. This deployment was an amazing proving ground for us, and quickly helped us realize the challenges and limitations of Wi-Fi use for real-time locating. By 2005, the company altered technology direction to ZigBee mesh networking. Conceived around 1998, ZigBee networks were acknowledged by engineers who realized that both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth were unsuitable for many applications. In particular, many engineers saw a need for self-organizing ad-hoc digital radio networks that would not interfere with existing WLAN infrastructure, but could play nice with them, were easy to install, and virtually set up and maintained themselves through self-forming, self-calibrating, self-healing properties.

Recognizing that business success demands focus, Awarepoint quickly leveraged its experience with Naval Medical Center San Diego, and the background of one of our founding members, the notable Admiral Harold Koenig, M.D., to focus on developing RTLS to address the asset management challenges faced by hospitals.

Dr. Koenig retired in 1998 as Surgeon General of the Navy and Chief, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery with the permanent rank of Vice Admiral after a 32-year Navy career. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy, Brigham Young University and Baylor University College of Medicine. Today, he continues to serve Awarepoint in the capacity of Chief Medical Officer.

By 2007, Awarepoint had completed significant pilot installs in hospitals in Southern California, and confirmed ZigBee mesh networking technology as a viable commercial application for Real-time Location Solutions in hospitals. Awarepoint’s Board of Directors quickly recognized the market potential, and the need to establish a management team to commercialize this success. By 2009, with its patented technologies, Awarepoint was providing enterprise Real-Time Awareness Solutions to hospitals that include prestigious teaching institutions, premiere independents, military facilities and members of major integrated delivery networks.

We share the vision of today’s most forward looking healthcare professionals who recognize that “connected health” strategies have the potential to revolutionize the quality and economics of healthcare. In fact, we attracted the attention of the remarkable Dr. Dennis O’Leary, who today serves as our Chief Strategy Officer. Dr. O’Leary served a 21-year tenure as President at The Joint Commission. During that time, O’Leary led the successful transformation of its accreditation process to focus on actual organization performance in the provision of patient care. In 2000, he was identified by Modern Healthcare as “one of the 25 most influential leaders in health care”. O’Leary earned his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College and his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.

In 2009, given its traction as a provider of asset management solutions, and the strength and applicability of its technologies, Awarepoint recognized the time was right to expand the definition of our target market from asset management for healthcare to technology partners who recognize the value and role of active RFID and RTLS, and the role these will play in both asset management, patient flow and the new generation of connected health solutions.

We look forward to sharing the next steps of our evolution with you here on this blog.

The AwarepointBlog Rules of Engagement

At Awarepoint, we live by an employee value philosophy fondly known by its acronym: APOINT. APOINT embodies the attitudes embraced by every employee:

Accountability: We will be responsible and answerable to each other, to our customers and to our shareholders.

Passion: We will operate with the stoic passion to do whatever it takes to make the company great. We will be true to ourselves, and if we can’t put our hearts in it, we will take ourselves out of it.

Objectivity: We will not be influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudices. Our decisions will be based on facts.

Integrity: We demand honesty and ethical practice in our business and personal lives.

Novelty: We embrace idea that we are creating something different from anything before and that every product, every interaction, every policy is fostering a future in which Awarepoint remains remarkable.

Teamwork: We believe that strong collaboration produces better outcomes. We practice mutual respect and embrace diversity of opinion in order to encourage open debate and creative thinking.

We will do our best to ensure this site displays those qualities. We want to be a fun and engaging place to learn about the possibilities for enterprise real-time awareness in hospitals, keep you updated on the RTLS industry and how it’s evolving;, discuss technology as an enabler and the people and process change that are really required to make an impact; explain ZigBee technology, mesh networking and other topics the technology geeks love to talk about; and want to hear from you on other subjects or themes that are relevant, successes, challenges, whatever’s on your mind.

Well … maybe not whatever’s on your mind …

So, on that topic – this is where we introduce the “fine print” and discuss our guidelines for posting. We want you to post your thoughts, comments, suggestions, and questions, but when you post, make sure they are of general interest to most readers. Of course, profanity, racial and ethnic slurs, and rude behavior won’t be tolerated nor published. We will quickly remove any posts that are offensive, disrespectful or irrelevant. The AwarepointBlog is a moderated site because we want to ensure that everyone stays on topic—or at least pretty close to it.

We encourage you to respond to our bloggers and to the comments of other individuals. Even though The AwarepointBlog is moderated, we promise to present opposing viewpoints and will strive to keep posts interesting, diverse, and multi-sided. The Awarepoint Team sincerely wants to engage in a conversation with you, but also ask that you be patient with our Team for a response. Our bloggers all have “day jobs”, travel frequently, and may take a few days to respond.

Added 2/14/11:  Please, don't be anonymous in your comments. It's just too hard to have a conversation.

Some final “fine print” caveats: Remember this blog is a public forum – don’t post anything confidential or private. Also, these are the personal views of the individuals posting here, and not necessarily those of the Company. And lastly, this is not the place to submit specific customer service questions or technical support inquires. If you do have a specific customer issue, please call us toll free: 1-888-824-4866.

Thank you for reading, visiting, commenting and contributing. We’re so excited to have you here!

The AwarepointBlog: RTLS Hospital Asset Tracking and Beyond

Tracking equipment location is just the start; tracking to business objectives is the future. Awarepoint Real-time Awareness Solutions (RTAS): The future is here.

Welcome!

Hello from sunny San Diego headquarters of Awarepoint Real-time Awareness Solutions (and yes, it’s sunny and 72 today!). It’s our goal that this blog opens an exchange of ideas about the asset management, patient flow, patient care and overall environment of care challenges most important to hospitals. Specifically, we’re hoping for a dynamic chat about the problems to which you feel adding real-time awareness technology to your strategic plans can benefit you. In case you’re not familiar – this location-based technology is like having an indoor GPS in your hospital to track mobile equipment and people. Well, actually, it goes much beyond that – but that’s what we hope to discuss here!

We hope to hear from hospital administrators, clinicians, technology organizations, materials managers, biomedical engineers, the transport team, facilities, housekeeping, and all the others that make patient care and the business of running a hospital their job. We invite you to think beyond the challenge of searching and locating equipment and people in your hospital, and to consider how knowing not only location, but condition, movement, history, interaction, and usage about the assets and people that interrelate throughout your entire enterprise can change the way you deliver care.

Why The AwarepointBlog?

Real-time Location Systems (or RTLS) have become well known in healthcare for solving asset management challenges – finding what you need when you need it. A clear and documented return on investment has been demonstrated at many client sites across the country in the areas of reduced spending on surplus equipment, a decreased need for rental equipment, improvement in staff efficiency, enhanced quality patient care time; and managing lost, stolen or misplaced equipment. It’s true – RTLS asset management is a clear win for hospitals, but it’s really just the “minimum price of entry” in leveraging an enterprise real-time awareness platform.

We created this blog as a discussion forum to address moving the conversation beyond RTLS to address the bigger picture of location and condition-sensing on an enterprise-wide basis in hospitals. We feel “location” is an incomplete view of the benefits of a real-time networked awareness solution, and we’d like to know if you agree.

We encourage you to join us in this conversation as we explore the benefits of asset management in healthcare, and how Real-time Location Systems (RTLS) are evolving beyond search and locate to a new definition, which we’ve coined Real-time Awareness (RTAS), others have named enterprise visibility and still others are calling location and conditioning sensing networks. You’ll see we don’t mention “RFID” here, but, in fact, many of the technologies employed in this market segment use RF-based technology. So, if you’re as confused as most, let us know – RFID, RTLS, Active RFID, Location and Condition Sensing, Visibility, Awareness … how the heck are we collectively going to define this market?

We’d also love to hear success stories, challenges and opportunities that matter most to hospital administrators, clinicians, staff and patients alike, and the process changes, technologies and programs that you feel can most impact all or part of the entire healthcare value equation.And on that subject, we’d love to know your thoughts on the healthcare value equation above. Does this equation resonate with you as you think about delivering care and running the business of a hospital?

Talk to us, comment, conversate, be a contrarian – we welcome it all (well, almost all - be sure to read our Rules of Engagement first).

Spotlight on Relevant Discussions

TheAwarepointBlog will embrace conversation on topics we hear from our customers, partners and the media every day. Today, these spotlight areas of discussion consist of:

• The 5 Critical Success Factors for Long Term Clinical and Financial Success for RTLS in Healthcare
• Zigbee Technology: What’s Everyone Buzzing About?
• FUD Busters – Dispelling Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (What's Real, What's Not in the World of RTLS?)
• The Healthcare Value Equation – Areas of Focus that Matter Most to Healthcare Administrators and the Patients They Serve
• Why Technology is Not the Silver Bullet – People and Process Change Are! (Stories from the Awarepoint Customer Success Team)
• Interesting News, Events and Blogs We Are Following

We expect, and in fact, eagerly anticipate, this list evolving over time as we hear what matters most to you. If you are already invested in an RTLS solution – what’s working, what’s not? If you’re considering one, what are the major pain points you are trying to solve, what are the technology challenges you’ve faced? If you haven’t considered RTLS in the past – how can we help you understand the values and benefits enterprise awareness can provide?

We look forward to exchanging perspectives.

~ The AwarepointBlog Team