St. Croix Systems and AeroScout Integrate Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) for Healthcare

Integrated solution optimizes asset management to drive efficiency, regulatory compliance, and safety

WALTHAM, MA and CHICAGO, IL (HIMSS Conference), April 6, 2009 — St. Croix Systems, an innovative provider of Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions, today announced a partnership with AeroScout, Inc., the leading provider of Unified Asset Visibility for the healthcare industry. The two companies will offer an integrated Asset Management and Real-Time Location System solution to help healthcare organizations manage mobile devices and equipment more efficiently, while improving regulatory compliance and safety.

The solution combines asset location data from AeroScout with St. Croix Systems’ Asset Enterprise 5.0 (AE5) to provide each tagged asset with a precise, up-to-the-minute location. From an asset record in AE5, users can launch the AeroScout MobileView application to determine the specific location of the asset, displayed on a Web-based map along with associated information such as status, availability, and recall data.

EAM Essential to Effective, Efficient, and Safe Hospital Operations
Effective asset management in a hospital requires coordination among a number of key stakeholders, including supply chain, materials management, clinical engineering, transport and the clinical staff on the floor.

“Getting the right asset to the right place at the right time requires a solid game plan and up-to-the-minute asset information,” said Troy Kenyon, president, St. Croix Systems. “Whether faced with an urgent request for transport monitors to keep the O.R. flowing or a replacement for a recalled infusion pump, the ability to locate, identify, and execute requests for mobile assets requires an integrated solution. The integration work between St. Croix Systems and AeroScout now provides hospital and medical care facilities the broad and extensive knowledge of device location and status.”

In addition to medical staff needing access to ready-to-use equipment, purchasing, and supply chain managers must maintain and manage efficient supply levels by capturing equipment order and utilization data. Also, clinical engineers who face a myriad of daily tasks, such as equipment recall management, preventive maintenance and corrective maintenance, need reliable information about equipment location. Such knowledge ensures that equipment remains highly functional and available in order to provide safe patient care.

Manually locating equipment throughout a hospital’s entire campus is a labor- and time-intensive process, and equipment is sometimes not located in time for preventive maintenance, or never located and written off as lost or stolen. Once found equipment is often in use or already booked for service, which leaves the various constituents unable to use or replace it or to perform vital maintenance.

“We have found that integration is critical for clients in the healthcare market – asset visibility needs to be tightly woven into the processes and the systems that logistics personnel and clinical engineers work with on a daily basis,” said Gabi Daniely, vice president of marketing and product strategy, AeroScout. “Moreover, asset management is a hospital-wide process and requires enterprise-wide visibility. AeroScout’s solutions are an ideal fit for this, due to their close integration with other hospital systems, and ability to leverage a hospital’s standard Wi-Fi network. We are pleased to be working with St. Croix to deliver integrated and valuable solutions to our mutual clients.”

The Benefits are Extensive
Tracking asset movement and usage also supports effective inventory management and load balancing for optimized capital resource deployment. By ensuring the right asset arrives at the right location at the right time, this integrated solution increases patient safety and overall quality of care. Clinical engineers who know an asset’s location will waste less time searching for such assets, which in turn reduces service costs, and improves The Joint Commission compliance by facilitating higher levels of on-time completion of equipment maintenance. Additionally, clinical engineers can ensure reductions in lost, stolen, or hoarded assets.

Kenyon notes, “The integration of St. Croix Systems’ and AeroScout’s solutions provides one of the most innovative means for our customers to improve their overall business processes while efficiently meeting compliance mandates, and ensuring higher levels of patient care and safety. This will improve staff productivity and effectiveness, provide a complete view of valuable assets, and improve access to critical business information for better decision-making around the deployment of capital.”

About AeroScout
AeroScout is the market leader in Unified Asset Visibility solutions. Customers improve operational efficiency using AeroScout products that leverage standard Wi-Fi networks to track and manage the location, condition, and status of mobile assets and people. AeroScout’s global customer base consists of leading hospital, manufacturing, and logistics organizations, including many of the Fortune 500. The company invented the first Wi-Fi-based Active RFID tag, and today is widely recognized as leading the market in number of deployments and tags shipped. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, AeroScout has offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Latin America. For more information, please visit www.aeroscout.com.

AeroScout is a registered trademark of AeroScout, Inc. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information is subject to change without notice.

About St. Croix Systems
Founded in 1993, St. Croix Systems is a leader in Enterprise Asset Management solutions that allow healthcare providers to manage the lifecycle of capital assets across the enterprise. With active control of the planning, acquisition, tracking, maintenance, safety, and retirement of these assets, customers can improve operation and capital performance, and ensure a safe and quality environment care. Healthcare customers across the country and around the globe have deployed St. Croix Systems’ highly scalable technology. For more information, please visit: www.stcroixsystems.com.

Media Contact:
Lauren Curley
St. Croix Systems
+1 781.383.6406
lcurley@stcroixsystems.com