Platte Valley Medical Center Launches Whole-House Fully-Integrated Wireless System

First in Colorado to Wirelessly Track Patient Information from Anywhere in Hospital

BRIGHTON, Colorado – May 31, 2007 – When the new regional Platte Valley Medical Center opens on July 10, it will be the first hospital in Colorado and one of only a few in North America with the ability to wirelessly monitor patients’ vital signs from anywhere in the hospital.

The new medical center will have the most comprehensive, fully integrated wireless hospital system in Colorado, expanding patient care with an advanced nurse-call system, facilitating pager and cell phone communications among health care providers, and offering internet access for patients and visitors. 

One of the system’s most innovative features is its virtually limitless expandability for future applications such as wireless medication administration and the ability to electronically locate within the hospital the nearest equipment such as an EKG to expedite patient procedures.

Whole-House Wireless System
A brand new, three-building, $138 million complex on a 50-acre campus in Brighton, the community-owned, nonprofit Platte Valley Medical Center was built with a whole-house wireless system that can handle multiple wireless interpersonal, business, data and clinical services and applications.

“At Platte Valley Medical Center we have created a wireless system that
positions the patient at the center of all wireless services,” said Harold Dupper, chief financial officer.  “With the extensive infrastructure installed through our vendor, InnerWireless, and their relationship with Philips Medical Systems, we now have a state-of-the-art strategy in place."

The wireless system offers three areas of application.  First, it has the capacity to provide clinical wireless services with the ability to move high-speed wireless data, to monitor patients and to locate equipment anywhere in the complex.

Second, it greatly enhances communications systems among doctors, nurses and technicians, and for patients and visitors through assured cell coverage and WiFi access. 

Third, the wireless system governs the operational efficiency of the hospital complex including automation systems, security, two-way communications and first responder capabilities.

“Platte Valley Medical Center is at the forefront of hospital wireless systems because they made wireless capability a key component in the design of the building just like any other utility such as electricity or plumbing, rather than merely adding it during the construction process,” noted Ed Cantwell, president and chief executive officer of InnerWireless.

“As a result, Platte Valley Medical Center will be one of the most state-of-the art wireless hospitals in the world.  Their ‘patient centered’ use of wireless will result in improved patient care and hospital productivity while setting a standard within the healthcare industry,” Cantwell said.

All Frequencies On One Pathway
All wireless modalities operating in virtually all frequencies will share a common ‘pathway’ to the hospital’s core clinical and business systems.  Future wireless application launches will be added to this common, existing wireless infrastructure.

The passive wireless solution has no active components that can fail and is engineered and designed to allow new wireless services, applications and devices to be deployed without constant above-the-ceiling intrusions every time another wireless service becomes available.  The goal is to limit costly disruptions to patient care and infection control issues.

Wireless Monitoring and Information Access
The hospital’s new system enables a patient’s vital signs to be monitored wirelessly from virtually anywhere in the hospital with the Philips IntelliVue WMTS (Wireless Medical Telemetry Service) monitoring system, even when patients are being moved throughout the facility for tests and procedures. 

Now, vital signs as well as laboratory test results, films of patient procedures and patient records (including complex critical care and emergency department data) also will be wirelessly available to physicians, nurses and technicians regardless of where health care providers or the patient happen to be located within the hospital at any given time.

Real-Time Information Access
The wireless medical telemetry system for patient monitoring allows for:

• Access to a patient’s vital signs in real-time, regardless of the patient’s physical location or the location of staff and physicians.  This means that blood pressure, pulse, EKG and oximetry are accessible whether the patient is in the emergency department, on a patient floor, in transport to medical tests, en route to surgery or in postoperative care.  By creating a truly acuity adaptable environment, a patient can receive the same level of monitoring in all rooms or nursing units.
  
  Example:  In a traditional environment, a hysterectomy patient with spinal anesthesia is transported to post-op on a non-monitored floor.  If the patient develops a post-op complication, blood oxygen levels drop and the patient cannot be aroused.  The patient needs to be admitted immediately to ICU where the necessary monitors are available, but ICU is full.  This dilemma creates the need to determine which patient must be moved out of ICU to make space for this emergency.
  
  With the InnerWireless whole-house medical grade wireless utility in place, the post-op patient is continuously monitored for pulse, blood oxygen levels and blood pressure regardless of hospital location.  In other circumstances, telemetry boxes allow a patient to be mobile, even able to visit PVMC’s Silver Aspen Bistro and Barista while on continuous watch, allowing for safety and enhanced care, as well as providing patient mobility and freedom.

• Increased safety and efficiency as patients move through the hospital admission process.  Continuous monitoring on a single system provides care givers with the ability to access and compare any or all of a patient’s historical monitoring trends or events, reducing opportunity for error and improving the care givers ability to respond appropriately and on a timely basis to monitoring events and alarms.

• Eliminating the need to change how patients are monitored from one hospital function to another, limiting discomfort to the patient and inconvenience to care givers.

• Assuring the security of patient data because all radio signals arising from patient monitoring systems are broadcast on protected, licensed bands.

• Wireless capabilities to grow with the hospital, as future enhancements increase quality, functionality and the scope of patient monitoring services.

The use of wireless technology will enable PVMC to more efficiently move patients through its system, decreasing wait times and increasing cost efficiency.  For example, patients entering the Emergency Department are registered at bedside with wireless devices, shortening the time between entering the hospital and being assigned to a bed to receive care.  This allowed the medical center to plan for smaller emergency waiting areas, reducing construction costs.

Other System Features
The wireless broadband system can support several other major applications:

• Advanced Nurse Call System.  Communications are enhanced with VoIP (voice over internet protocol) handsets.  A patient-initiated call to a nurse for assistance or an internal or external call can go directly to the nurse, rather than having the nursing station seek out the nurse in another patient’s room.

• Clinical Staff Personal Pagers and Cell Phones.  The wireless system will expedite communications among physicians, nurses and other health care providers.  The InnerWireless system guarantees wireless coverage throughout the hospital for pagers and, in the future, cell phones.  In a hospital without wireless infrastructure, doctors might miss an important page, because they are in an area where wireless signals are not strong.  Once arrangements with cell carriers are in place, physicians will be able to receive and return calls while on their rounds with assured cell coverage.  Physicians can be notified instantaneously when test results are available, consult quickly and easily with other physicians and communicate directly with a patient’s nurse. 

• WiFi Mobile Work Stations.  Instead of using bedside charts or returning to centralized computer for record keeping at the nursing station, care givers can record patient information using computers on wheels (COW) and tablet computers.  Each COW allows for 30- to 60-second in-room access to all of a patient’s medical imaging records including the patient’s films of procedures, laboratory test results, old records and nursing notes.  The immediate availability of this information means faster clinical decision making and delivery of patient care.

• WiFi Café.  The hospital will make available internet access for patients and visitors.

• Cell Phones.  Cell phone providers can make arrangements with the hospital to assure signal strength and coverage for patients and visitors.

• Restaurant-Style Visitor Pagers.  Patients waiting to be called for diagnostic procedures and visitors awaiting patients in surgery will have the freedom to move beyond patient waiting areas.  Pagers can be issued to summon the visitor or patient from the hospital’s Silver Aspen Bistro and Barista, healing garden and other areas.

• Fire Department Compatibility.  Brighton Fire Department has re-radiated its emergency radio signals to avoid wireless ‘dead spots’ when fire safety personnel enter the building on EMS or first-responder calls.

• Equipment Locator.  In the near future, any medical or technological equipment with a transmitter attached can be located within six feet of its current location.  For example, if an EKG or IV pump unit is needed for a patient procedure, the health care provider can instantaneously locate the closest available unit on the hospital’s intranet system, expediting patient care.

• Wireless Medication Administration.  Within the next two years, the hospital anticipates administering medications through a bar-coded device that electronically coordinates and validates how patients receive oral and intravenous medications.

"Development of wireless applications to healthcare is extremely fast paced.  Through the use of the medical grade wireless utility, we did our best to design the hospital building to have the flexibility to accommodate and implement advances in wireless business and medical technology applications well into the future," states PVMC's Chief Financial Officer Harold Dupper. 

About Platte Valley Medical Center
On July 10, PVMC opens its new $138 million regional medical center on a 50-acre campus. It is one of the only community-owned hospitals in the metro area, governed by a community board where decisions are made at a local level. PVMC is the only hospital within a 16-mile radius serving the northeast quadrant of metro Denver, projected to be the fastest-growing region in the metro area. Its immediate service area includes the communities of Brighton, Lochbuie, Ft. Lupton, Commerce City, Thornton, Henderson, Hudson and Keenesburg. Honored as a national award winner for exceeding patient expectations by Avatar International, Inc., PVMC offers excellent nurse-to-patient ratios to enhance one-on-one care, while utilizing an advanced level of technology. The original Brighton Community Hospital was founded 47 years ago by Brighton residents. The new regional medical center is located just west of I-76 between 144th Avenue and Bromley Lane at 1600 Prairie Center Parkway in Brighton, Colorado.

About InnerWireless
InnerWireless, Inc. guarantees wireless coverage inside hospitals and healthcare-related facilities with Horizon, its Wireless Utility, a unified broadband wireless distribution platform.  Engineered to support a full range of wireless services and applications, Horizon enables wireless systems essential for interpersonal communications, clinical operations, and building operations.  In addition, InnerWireless has launched Spot to provide wireless, high-assurance locations tracking for hospital assets, clinical staff and patients.  For more information about InnerWireless, visit www.InnerWireless.com.

Contact
Cynthia Gleason
Kostka•Gleason Communications
(303) 548-5158
cgkostka@aol.com