RESTON, Virginia, January 7 /PRNewswire/ --

- Multi-Year Agreement Allows UHC Member Hospitals to Quickly Deploy Wi-Fi-based Location Tracking and Build Foundation for Future Applications

Ekahau Inc., a leading provider of Wi-Fi-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), today announced that after a competitive bid process it was awarded a multi-year agreement with University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) to provide the Ekahau Real Time Location System (RTLS) solution to UHC member hospitals.

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This three-year agreement, with options to extend, positions Ekahau as the preferred provider of RTLS solutions to UHC's 294 member hospitals throughout the United States. Many of these institutions have Wi-Fi in place today making Ekahau's WI-Fi-based RTLS solution a logical choice for a cost-effective, quick deployment. Ekahau also has mutual certifications with all leading Wi-Fi infrastructure providers, further endorsing the benefits of Ekahau's location tracking solution to UHC and its member hospitals.

RTLS systems have become a mainstream technology in hospitals across the U.S. for tracking assets, inventory and patients and knowing the whereabouts of key staff members. Knowing the real-time whereabouts of these key assets has become mission critical to healthcare institutions, helping them reduce costs, improve workflow and increase the quality and timeliness of patient care.

UHC is excited about entering into a new agreement with Ekahau because we believe they are one of the best RTLS system providers for our member hospitals, said Cindy White, UHC's vice president of operations. We wanted a system that can cater to the unique tracking needs of each of our member hospitals and yet be simple and cost-effective to deploy.

Ekahau RTLS is a unique tracking system because it can locate objects using a hospital's existing Wi-Fi network, regardless of vendor or generation of the infrastructure. The Ekahau system is the only Wi-Fi-based system on the market that is capable of providing room-level accuracy using Wi-Fi without deploying proprietary chokepoints or readers, which can cause interference with medical equipment. Since Wi-Fi is typically deployed hospitalwide, Ekahau RTLS can extend location visibility across the entire campus or several campuses without any additional costs.

We are very honored that UHC selected Ekahau as its RTLS partner of choice and to have the opportunity to serve the organization's member hospitals. The program we have put into place with UHC will allow UHC members to easily procure and roll out RTLS solutions to meet immediate needs and to have a platform for future growth and expandability as new requirements are put forth, said Tuomo Rutanen, Ekahau's vice president of business development. During challenging economic times, like those we're experiencing today, RTLS systems can help businesses of all types save money. By leveraging existing Wi-Fi networks, Ekahau RTLS allows hospitals to better utilize their existing assets, resulting in lower capital spending, while driving significant operational efficiencies that reduce expenses and support improved patient care and safety initiatives.

Ekahau holds more than a dozen patents on its core location algorithms and processes that allow for the full modeling and analysis of RF data from the Wi-Fi network. Ekahau also offers the broadest set of Wi-Fi tags available to meet user- or application-specific needs. This powerful combination of software and hardware has been selected by thousands of customers worldwide to solve everyday business and operational problems.

About UHC

The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), formed in 1984, is an alliance of 103 academic medical centers and 191 of their affiliated hospitals representing approximately 90 percent of the nation's nonprofit academic medical centers. UHC offers its members specific programs and services to improve clinical, operational, and patient safety performance. The mission of UHC is to advance knowledge, foster collaboration, and promote change to help members succeed in their respective markets. For more information, visit http://www.uhc.edu.

About Ekahau Inc.

Ekahau Inc. is the industry leader in providing Wi-Fi-based RTLS solutions. Ekahau's customers, including several Fortune 500 companies worldwide, are realizing the benefits of Wi-Fi based location services and innovative Wi-Fi network planning and optimization tools. Ekahau's solutions are being used in more than 150 hospitals around the world, as well as by manufacturers, mining/oil/gas companies, government agencies and the military. Ekahau partners include wireless software developers, leading system integrators and international OEM partners, who develop and market wireless enterprise applications. Ekahau is a U.S. based corporation, with offices in Saratoga, Calif.; Reston, Va.; Helsinki, Finland; and Hong Kong, China. For more information about Ekahau, please visit at http://www.ekahau.com.

(c) Copyright 2009, Ekahau, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

U.S. Media Contacts: Juliet Travis, Rocket Science PR, for Ekahau, +1-415-464-8110 x 215 Office, juliet@rocketscience.com; Linda Bosy, Senior Director of Marketing, for UHC, +1-630-954-2808 Office, +1-312-301-6328 Mobile, bosy@uhc.edu