Healthcare location portfolio enhanced as HID acquires GuardRFID

HID’s range of real-time location solutions (RTLS) for healthcare is expanded and improved following the acquisition of GuardRFID, a leading provider of RTLS hardware and software in healthcare.

GuardRFID’s active reader tags, readers and exciters, and software, support four primary use cases important to healthcare provision customers – infant security, staff duress, asset tracking, and wandering patients.

The TotGuard infant security system prevents infant abduction and mother-baby mismatches by providing wearable tags for mothers and infants. The solution works in conjunction with both a hospital’s access control and network video systems.

RFID tags are used to provide real-time visibility of healthcare assets and enable staff to quickly find the equipment they need. This improves asset utilization, saves labor costs, and reduces theft.

When at-risk patients, such as the elderly or those struggling with mental health, are tagged they become instantly detected at exit doors, stair wells, and elevators. The doors can be configured to lock and sound alarms, offering an extra level of protection to patients and caregivers.

“Bringing GuardRFID and its innovative RTLS technology into the HID family allows us to enhance our healthcare presence to better protect patients and staff,” says Björn Lidefelt, Head of HID Global. “These solutions will help providers do what they do best – making their patients feel better, faster.”

The solutions complement HID’s cutting-edge Location Services platform for healthcare, which delivers scalable real-time location and monitoring of clinicians, patients and assets.

HID Location is an Internet of Things (IoT) networked service that provides real-time visibility. Designed using an open standard Bluetooth Low Energy to Wi-Fi network and cloud platform, HID Location enables healthcare organizations to track everything under the same ecosystem without abandoning current application investments.

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, GuardRFID is now part of HID’s Identification Technologies business area. The GuardRFID offering will merge into HID’s IoT business unit and benefit from HID’s sales and other functions.