Hill-Rom Announces Collaboration With Ascom To Enhance Wireless Communication Offerings

New Orleans, LA - Hill-Rom IT Solutions, provider of clinical IT solutions, recently announced that it will begin working with Ascom, an international market-provider of on-site wireless communication solutions. The two companies will offer a wireless product in the health care industry through FreeNET 802.11b/g Communication System and UNITE Messaging and Integration Suite lines. The two Ascom products compliment Hill-Rom IT Solutions' product line of caregiver communication and patient-flow applications and promise to deliver real-time information in acute care medical facilities. The two organizations will begin this strategic alliance with sales in North America.

"Ascom provides another advance in Hill-Rom's strategy to grow our wireless device portfolio and provide customers with technology solutions that enable excellence in patient care," said Michael D. Gallup, vice president and general manager, Hill-Rom IT Solutions. "Our focus is to deliver systems which leverage real-time information and communications across the care continuum. Ascom is aligned in achieving the same objective."

Working with Ascom will build on the substantial wireless device sales and service business in place today with Hill-Rom and will provide a wider range of choices for Hill-Rom customers. Ascom effectively extends the reach of Hill-Rom IT Solutions' products such as COMLinx NCM, its nurse call solution, and the NaviCare system, its patient flow solution.

Ascom embraces this partnership as it capitalizes on its own strategy of Professional Messaging and Smart Integration. Ascom is a leader in optimizing workflow and improving responsiveness in hospitals.

"Hill-Rom understands how to analyze and improve workflow in hospitals. We are pleased that this alignment will allow our jointly integrated solutions to be available to many more hospitals," said Tom McKearney, vice president marketing and business development, Ascom (US) Inc.

Gallup added, "Customers are increasingly demanding powerful yet flexible integrations with both new and legacy systems. The standards-based interfaces between the innovative solutions provided by Ascom and Hill-Rom allow our customers to accelerate mission-critical workflow, reduce length of stay, improve patient safety and ultimately increase patient satisfaction. Providing two-way interaction at the handset, either voice or messaging, allows mobile workers the power and flexibility to immediately respond or escalate events with a full audit trail, which satisfies Joint Commission and risk management concerns."

SOURCE: Hill-Rom IT Solutions