Doctor with stethoscope using computer tablet

Leveraging Aruba WiFi installations for HID Location Services – Better Together

Healthcare organizations across the world are looking for new opportunities to maximize efficiencies to both improve health outcomes and lower costs. To do so, many are looking to Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, including real-time locations services (RTLS), to faster find and manage assets, clinical staff, and patients across the enterprise.

Why Use HID's Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS)?

HID Global is part of ASSA ABLOY, a global stable player and leader in the Gartner magic quadrant. Our Location Services platform is an Internet of Things (IoT) networked service that provides real-time visibility of everything – clinicians, patients and assets. Designed using an open standard Bluetooth® (BLE) to Wi-Fi network and cloud platform, healthcare organizations can easily lay out the long-term foundation for future IoT applications, management, and everyday use. Hospitals can quickly locate and monitor utilization of valuable assets, under the same ecosystem without abandoning current application investments and avoiding excess inventory of mobile items.

Unifying healthcare systems and applications through HID Location Services improves clinician accountability, patient throughput and asset management.

Benefits include:

  • Automated clinical processes, compliance with regulators and improved patient experiences
  • Instant location of peers and other clinical staff members during emergencies with immediate notification to authorities if in duress
  • Real-time patient alerts and notifications to adhere to security best practices
  • Immediate location and tracking of medical assets and rental equipment
  • Automated asset management and inventory controls, reducing overstock
  • The ability to engage with patients & visitors through mobile wayfinding and other mobile communications

To achieve this, BEEKs™ Bluetooth Low Energy beacons in form of badges, wristbands or asset tracking devices are located by BLE to WiFi Gateways (BluFi™), which are deployed throughout the building or campus and communicate with the HID Bluzone™ cloud service for remote management and real-time location of assets.

Variety of HID badges, wristbands

Aruba WiFi Access Points Complement HID Location Services

Now often, hospitals and other large organizations have already deployed an infrastructure of WiFi Access points and utilizing those to sense the Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, would reduce the number of BluFi devices to be deployed, speed-up installation and increase coverage.

Aruba and HID have partnered to integrate Aruba 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) and 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) wireless access points with HID’s BEEKs Bluetooth Low Energy tags and Bluzone Cloud services. The integration and interoperability of Aruba with HID RTLS solutions helps to reduce cost and complexity by leveraging the existing Aruba wireless infrastructure which supports HID BLE communications directly.

BLE WiFi IoT Solution Enablement. One System, Seamless Experience

Supplementing IoT data with contextual information from the network enables applications to become cognizant of, and responsive to, the environment containing occupants, assets, their service needs, security, and safety.

These are the tools necessary for optimizing physical space and gaining the insights for improving workflows, patient experiences and increasing safety for patients, visitors, and employees.

A cost effective and secure way to deploy Location Based Services (LBS) and Real-Time Location Services (RTLS) within closed environments is by leveraging the existing Aruba Wi-Fi network infrastructure. This has the benefit of amortizing one capital investment across multiple services.

Leveraging the Aruba Wi-Fi network for HID solutions also eliminates incremental installation and maintenance costs of overlay networks supporting dedicated beacons and gateways. Additionally, get complete zonal visibility of assets in buildings from day one by simply switching on the devices. Cybersecurity posture is improved for the customer deployment as Aruba enables security policies and network visibility to extend edge to cloud security across the venue.

Certified Interoperability 

We’ve taken the guesswork out of deploying joint solutions by certifying the interoperability of HID’s platform with Aruba’s wireless infrastructure. This allows joint deployments to be setup faster and simplifies maintenance of the completed solution.

Summary

HID’s solution when integrated with Aruba Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 access point delivers valuable location services, supporting a multitude of indoor positioning-related use-cases in healthcare, manufacturing or other large offices. Highly scalable, these solutions solve accuracy and availability issues beyond the capabilities of GPS.

Download the Aruba – HID Partner Solution Overview or visit our Location Services for Healthcare Website.

To learn more about HID Solutions and the Aruba integration contact HID Location Services Product Manager [email protected]