News | September 29, 2008

US Air Force Medical Service Extends Shipcom Wireless Contract For Major Healthcare RFID Implementation

Shipcom Wireless, Inc., a leading global provider of enterprise and healthcare solutions, announced recently that their contract with the Air Force Surgeon General's Office to review the current uses of RFID technology across the Air Force Medical Service has been extended.

The original contract involves a baseline assessment of clinical and business processes at Keesler Medical Center using Shipcom's HOCAM (Hospital Operational & Clinical Assessment Model). This assessment will be followed by recommendations on how the Air Force can most effectively utilize RFID and related technologies to improve Patient Care and make clinical processes more efficient. Finally, Shipcom will model and implement specific RFID solutions at Keesler Medical Center using Shipcom's x/Care suite of healthcare applications, including the Patient Care module p/Care and the Asset Management module a/Care.

"Shipcom is pleased to continue our partnership with the Air Force Medical Services," states Abeezar Tyebji, CEO of Shipcom. "This validates our approach of focusing on the clinical/business issues and validating technology use for specific areas."

This extension allows implementation for an addition application solution and further validation of the business cases based on the original metrics. "Our objective is documented improvements in Patient Care and Clinical process efficiency," says John Shoemaker, President of Shipcom Wireless. These improvements will provide RFID deployment guidelines throughout the Air Force Medical Services.

About Shipcom
Shipcom provides identification and tracking solutions that include advanced and hybrid Auto-ID technologies (AIDC), designed to address the two key healthcare challenges of ensuring Patient Safety & increasing Operational Efficiency. Our x2 / Care suite of healthcare solutions is designed on an adaptive framework enabling multiple technologies to Integrate real-time data across a hospital's disparate infrastructure. Shipcom has more than eleven years experience in developing composite mobility and RFID applications for operational visibility, workflow simplification, real time dashboards, and process rules management for world class enterprises. Shipcom focuses on providing real ROI value that impact key business drivers and processes: costs, revenue, security, and customer satisfaction. Shipcom is headquartered in Houston, TX, with its regional offices in Boston, Charlotte, Toronto and Dubai.

Shipcom has satisfied customers in over 22 countries with hundreds of customer sites with real operational deployments. The company is comprised of experts in SAP, Oracle and other back-end IT System software, and various types of RFID, AIDC and Mobility applications.

About Keesler Medical Center Keesler Air Force Base boasts one of the largest medical treatment facilities in the Air Force. Home to the 81st Medical Group, the Keesler Medical Center contains a 78-bed inpatient hospital, outpatient clinics, a clinical research laboratory and aeromedical facilities to serve Air Force, Army and Navy bases in the southeastern United States. With a staff of nearly 1,400, the facility serves nearly 11,000 active duty personnel and 47,000 eligible beneficiaries in the Gulf Coast area. Its clinics see about 20,000 patients each month.

The medical center also trains outstanding medical and dental residents in five specialties. Keesler's general surgery and internal medicine residency programs were reaccredited and restarted in the summer of 2007.

With a new partnership with Memorial Hospital of Gulfport, affiliation with the University of Mississippi and the continued return of Airmen to Keesler, the medical center hopes to resume Pediatric and OB/GYN training programs in the summer of 2010. Keesler also has its three dental residency programs back on board. Advanced Education in Dentistry and the general practice residency resumed in 2007 while endodontics returned in 2008.

Keesler is also the Air Force's second largest mobility mission, deploying expeditionary medical support teams around the world. The Joint Commission fully accredited Keesler Medical Center in 2007. It is an ideal location for coordinated pilot projects.

SOURCE: Shipcom Wireless, Inc.