Press Release
Versus RTLS Selected to Support Disaster
Response Initiatives
(Traverse City, Michigan, September 9,
2010) – The Bethesda Hospitals' Emergency Preparedness Partnership (BHEPP), comprised of Suburban Hospital (a member of Johns
Hopkins Medicine), the National Naval Medical Center, and the National
Institutes of Health Clinical Center and National Library of Medicine, has
selected Versus Advantages™ from Versus Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: VSTI) to support its RFID / Real-time
Location System (RTLS) initiative.
The goal of the BHEPP RFID / RTLS project
is to have a system in place that can track patients to room-level throughout
designated emergency care areas, regardless of whether care takes place in a
traditional emergency room, in a BHEPP surge capacity mobile hospital, or in
multiple locations. Ultimately, the BHEPP has two goals: 1) provide an
immediate and sustained response to any local, regional, or national emergency,
and 2) develop an exportable, proven model for emergency preparedness and response
that can be replicated in other metropolitan areas.
The BHEPP began exploring RTLS options
after the inability to track patients in a mass casualty event had been
documented as a gap in multiple real disasters. In August 2009, the National
Library of Medicine issued a Scope of Work (SOW), to which all RTLS vendors
meeting minimum requirements were invited to respond. Some of the requirements
included the ability to provide both hardware and software, integrate to
existing and future BHEPP applications, locate with room-level or better precision
at a minimum 95% accuracy rate, practical experience, and the ability to provide
reliable locating to partner facilities on a daily basis (when not responding
to a crisis). The technologies proposed to meet these requirements included
Infrared (IR), Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), Sonic, UWB, Wi-Fi, ZigBee and combinations thereof.
Based on responses to the initial inquiry,
three vendors were asked to respond with a proposal outlining their solutions
as well as a detailed implementation plan describing how they would accomplish
the SOW. Following a comprehensive review of each system, functionality, cost,
its ability to grow with the partnership and yield consistent results when
adopted by future partnerships, BHEPP elected to award the contract to Versus.
For over 20 years, Versus has relied on its IR and
RFID system to achieve clinical-quality location data for clients requiring
bed-level accuracy, event automation and quality reporting.
Versus Advantages offers BHEPP a method to link patient information with patient location and communicate this information to hospital emergency responders. The benefits of such a system include one-time registration/identification, the ability to seamlessly transfer patients from one care area to another (as dictated by patient status or patient volume), the ability to quickly assess patient volume and acuity across all care settings, and the ability to quickly identify patients and their locations. When not in disaster response mode, individual facilities will be able to use Versus Advantages for asset tracking, staff census, patient flow and real-time bed management.
About BHEPP
This partnership is a first-of-its-kind collaboration that links military, federal, local and private mass disaster medical response efforts within the national capital area. Established in 2004, the partnership is now a model for other health care agencies throughout the country
About
Versus Technology, Inc.
Established in 1988, Versus
Technology, Inc. specializes in real-time location systems (RTLS) for healthcare. Used for
enterprise patient
tracking, bed
management, asset tracking, and nurse call automation, Versus Advantages™ improves patient
flow and
documentation of caregiver and patient interactions, while enhancing
communication and efficiency. Exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital
Association, the Versus Advantages infrared (IR) and Active RFID solution is responsible for
clinical-grade location and automation at a number of hospitals, clinics and
long-term care facilities worldwide. To learn more about Versus Technology,
Inc. (Pink Sheets: VSTI.PK), our technology and client successes, visit www.versustech.com and take the Advantages
Tour.
Safe
Harbor Provision
This
release may include forward-looking statements which “bespeak caution,” and
which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially from the forward-looking statements. The statements are
made only as of the date of this release, and the Company undertakes no obligation
to update them to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
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Media Contact: Versus Technology, Inc. 877.983.7787 |
Investor/Analyst
Contact:
Joseph Winowiecki, Chief Financial Officer 231.946.5868 joew@versustech.com |
