Healthcare tracking pioneer Radianse has taken a major step forward to ease the installation of real-time location systems (RTLS).

New Radianse receivers will plug-and-play on hospitals' existing Wi-Fi (2.4GHz) networks for a faster, simpler RTLS installation free of dust or other disruption to care.

To assure hospitals of interference-free operation, accurate room-level precision and support for patient tracking, throughput and clinical effectiveness applications, Radianse will continue to use its patented algorithms, active-RFID and the 433 MHz UHF band to calculate location.

Radianse chief strategy officer Paul Tessier said "We are not a Wi-Fi location company,"   "Rather, this offers the best of both worlds to the hospital that simply wants to leverage an investment in Wi-Fi. We use the existing infrastructure for what it was intended - to transmit data - and the Radianse location technology for accuracy and precision. Our clients need to know that a patient is in triage, not just in the ED; and that a device is clean and ready, not just that it's in the unit."

Radianse also announced enhancements to its location software, enabling greater flexibility in the placement and number of receivers required to achieve room-level location precision, further reducing installation cost.

The new Wi-Fi receiver, software updates and the recent news of an even smaller, lighter and disposable Radianse patient active-RFID tag, priced for ubiquitous deployment, are part of the Radianse vision to enable evidence-based management - to help hospitals document and drive quality and patient-safety processes, improve clinical effectiveness and create performance dashboards for interventional management.