Archive for August 7th, 2012
Veterans Affairs Implementing RTLS Across Seven Midwest Hospitals
The facilities, located in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, are installing six different types of real-time location systems, as well as passive RFID tags and other auto-ID technologies, with all data managed by Intelligent InSites software on a single platform.
Aug 6, 2012—The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is currently in the process of installing a real-time location system (RTLS) at all seven of its hospitals in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. The VA’s intention is to improve staff efficiencies, and thereby provide better medical care to veteran patients.
The VA’s health-care system is divided geographically into 21 regions, known as Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs), with Indiana, Illinois and Michigan comprising VISN 11. The RTLS solution involving the seven VISN 11 hospitals is being implemented by Hewlett-Packard (HP) Enterprise Services, with a variety of hardware vendors providing real-time location and temperature data. Intelligent InSites’ enterprise-wide RTLS software provides a single user interface for the applications, by managing data culled from all of the individual systems.
The installation is being called the largest such RTLS installation to date, the agency reports. Once completed, it will include 25,000 active RTLS tags, 94,000 passive RFID tags, and 2,000 wireless temperature and humidity sensors, and will cover a combined total of approximately 4.5 million square feet. The system also includes bar codes etched on 255,000 surgical instruments, as well as passive RFID tags for the 63,000 cardiac catheterization lab supplies consumed annually by the seven hospitals. Read data regarding all of these items will be transmitted to the Intelligent InSites software residing on VISN 11′s network, thereby enabling hospital employees not only to locate items or identify temperature changes in real time, but also to run reports and conduct analyses regarding assets, inventory levels and location details. In addition, the solution automates workflows and alerts based on real-time data. For instance, an alert could be triggered in the event that a temperature rose or dropped out of range, or if a dirty infusion pump was moved into a clean storage closet.
“Our goal is to improve the care we provide to veterans,” says Michael McDonald, VISN 11 biomedical engineering point-of-care (POC) chief. In considering RTLS solutions, he adds, “Our driving factor was the frustrations [from staff] in finding the right equipment at the right time.”
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Eon expects first-half profits to treble
Eon has said first-half profits will be more than treble the equivalent figure last year after Germany’s largest utility by sales cut a deal with Gazprom on long-term gas supply contracts.
The Düsseldorf-based company said on Tuesday that it expected to report about €3.3bn in underlying net income for the first six months of the year, compared with €900m a year ago. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation will be about €6.7bn, versus €4.3bn in the first half of 2011.
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Eon said the increase was due to the Gazprom settlement as well as the lack of negative one-off effects linked to Germany’s nuclear phase-out that burdened results last year. “These effects will continue to show in the quarters to come,” Eon said.
The utility also confirmed the full-year guidance that it issued last month. Eon expects underlying net income to reach €4.1bn-€4.5bn in 2012 and an ebitda range of €10.4bn-€11bn.
Eon share’s rose 1.2 per cent to €17.83 in early afternoon trading in Frankfurt, extending a gain of some 12 per cent in the past three months. The stock remains more than 60 per cent below a peak reached at the beginning of 2008.
After almost two years of talks, Eon won price cuts in July on its oil-linked long-term supply contracts for Russian natural gas that run until 2036. These long-term contracts had eroded Eon’s profits as spot-market prices for gas were lower.
The agreement was backdated to the end of 2010. Eon said in July that the settlement would have a positive impact of about €1bn on its first-half results, due to be released with its full interim report on August 13.
Eon suffered heavy losses last year after the government decided to close immediately eight of Germany’s 17 nuclear power stations and hasten the closure of the remainder.
Eon is now trying to transform itself from a primarily European utility into a global energy provider. This year it committed to a joint venture in Brazil to build gas and coal-fired power plants. It is also looking for opportunities in Turkey and India.
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Topflight acquires MCS’ Array Inkjet system
MCS has announced the acquisition of its MCS Array Inkjet system by Topflight of Glen Rock, PA.
‘We initially bought the MCS Array for an application from a power tool manufacturer. They needed 2D serialization codes on all of their drill handles, for warranty support and to track sales at the retail level,’ said Mike Glidewell, director of technical services for Topflight.
At the time, Topflight’s variable imaging equipment was10 years old and the ink wasn’t durable enough to withstand the use that a power tool would go through. ‘That led us to MCS,’ explained Glidewell. ‘They could handle the 2D barcodes, and had the software to support it. There were a lot of inkjet systems to choose from at the time. We looked at two to three competitors, and all had come up a little bit short of MCS’ capabilities. They either came up short with the inks, the portability of the platform, or the software to drive the numbering schemes. MCS had the right product at the right time.’
The MCS Array supports a print area that expands from two to 16 inches. It prints at speeds of up to 250 or 375 feet per minute – and can be integrated to most flexographic label presses or rewinders and on surfaces ranging from labels, primary and secondary packaging as well as corrugated boxes. Each two inch print head on the Array System has four individual industrial cartridges of inch width. By utilizing two print heads across the web, Topflight is running four lanes of labels through it at a time.
Glidewell said:‘The equipment is so portable and compact, we put it on a portable frame in order to move it from press to press and various rewinders. On the rewinder, we use it to serialize the back of liners for a medical device component. For medical and pharma applications, our clients have very strict label reconciliation procedures, which we integrate into a rewinder. So if we say we’re shipping 250 labels, they better get exactly 250.’
Rod Stone, president of Topflight, added, ‘Now we can take on more customer jobs than before. The Array’s flexibility goes across many markets, from cosmetic, to consumer goods, to pharma and medical device manufacturers. It allows us to offer more options to more customers.’
Patty Britton, VP of business development, agreed, ‘Now when we put together sample kits, we often include 2D barcodes and QR codes to show them what we can do. And we recently developed an anti-counterfeiting application with serialized 2D codes, which has increased our capacity to offer overt and covert brand security.’
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