HIMSS11 Wrap Up For Awarepoint and RTLS

HIMSS11 Wrap Up – How Did Awarepoint and RTLS Do?

Another HIMSS conference under my belt - my 12th? – always as a vendor in an emerging market segment in health IT and for the past few years with Awarepoint. I'm happy to report in this HIMSS11 Wrap Up that RTLS has really come into its own!

Virtually every hospital executive we spoke with was familiar with the RTLS market segment; not one said – wow – “I really don’t understand the benefit of knowing the real time location and status of all equipment, patients and personnel in my hospital!” To further substantiate that hospitals are ready, willing and receptive to RTLS, the HISTalk Blog had this to say when reporting on what the “buzz” was at HIMSS11:

“I asked quite a few people what the “buzz” was. I think there is generally an agreement that we are past the Meaningful Use frenzy in terms of aligning with vendors. At this point, most people are either committed or at least pretty far down the line in the EHR selection process. Now people are looking a little more into the future and trying to figure out what tools they need for likely Stage 2 and 3 requirements (the HIE booths were busy) and for establishing ACOs. Meanwhile, everyone knows they must cut costs and improve care, and there are literally hundreds of niche vendors offering everything from tracking systems, infrastructure alternatives, and RCM add-on utilities. Obviously Meaningful Use and ICD-10 will remain the priorities for the next few years, but I think health systems are going to become increasingly interested in finding these more peripheral products, if they indeed offer a meaningful ROI or transform care.”

Awarepoint, is, of course, in total agreement with the above – especially the part about tracking systems. You see, we have proven results that demonstrate a meaningful ROI and transformed care! You can hear real hospital RTLS customer successes on our newly relaunched website by clicking on this link.

Our HIMSS11 booth was large (for us) – 30 x 50 square feet.  It allowed us to showcase a live  Awarepoint real-time location system demo representing 6 hospital rooms where we showcased equipment tracking with room and bay-level accuracy; outlined our reporting and alerting application solution suite, including real-time temperature monitoring dashboards; demonstrated patient and personnel tag-to-tag interaction and introduced our hand hygiene documentation solution. Thanks to everyone on the Awarepoint marketing and engineering teams – our demo worked flawlessly! Truly a testament to the elegant simplicity of setting up a ZigBee wireless network. Just plug it in and it works – even on the tradeshow floor!

Speaking of demos – I always enjoy the HISTalk coverage of HIMSS – approached as a secret shopper report on vendors.

For Awarepoint (and I’m sure for a majority of the vendors) HIMSS is our biggest, most expensive show of the year. We are passionate about executing “the last mile” for a conference like this – that is, after all the pre-show planning and days of on-site set up, how do we execute the final leg of delivering a thoughtful, educational prospective customer experience on the show floor? I think far too many focus on all the hard work leading up to the conference, then fall short with exhausted and uninterested reps just waiting for it all to be over.

Not Awarepoint! Everyone in our booth was excited, energetic, prepped and practiced on tradeshow etiquette, could clearly state who we are and what we do in 30 seconds or less, offer an invitation to see our solution in action via a live demo, and articulate a clear plan for next steps with each prospective client.

So, it was great to hear our efforts confirmed by Tim as the HISTalk “secret shopper”: “Awarepoint did a good pitch when I dropped by anonymously. The guy qualified my interest and need very quickly, then gave some good examples of similar deployments. Nicely done for just a casual chat that I didn’t even ask for.”

Stay tuned for my next couple of posts focused on more from HIMSS11 including the RFID/RTLS Pavilion... what worked, what didn’t; will we participate again next year, and summaries from our Fireside Chat series presentations including:

• Keesler Medical Group Hospital – RTLS and Federal Healthcare
• RTLS Temperature Monitoring: Fact, Fiction and Best Practices
• Cerner and Awarepoint: Vision on Capacity Management and how RTLS Data Will Increase the Value
• The Value of RTLS Drive Preventive Maintenance and Order Logistics Solutions with St. Croix Systems
• Automated Tracking for Surgical Instruments and Equipment with Censis Technologies

To everyone who stopped by to visit Awarepoint at HIMSS11 – thanks so much! We have an incredible amount of follow-up to do with prospective new hospital clients and application partners, and we can’t wait to speak with you again soon!

I’d love to hear your HIMSS11 observations as a hospital representative - what works for you and what doesn’t when exploring the show floor? What can we, as vendors, do to make your experience as useful, informational and worthwhile as possible?