It also reminded me – like it does every day – the importance of safety net hospitals in our country.  This lady has very limited means and has no insurance.  Without Grady Memorial Hospital, this lady and thousands and millions of people like her have no options.   Without Grady, they would most probably be maimed for the rest of their lives, some would limp forever, some would be sightless, and some would die in child birth.  

This lady is also lucky enough to have one caring person who brings her to the hospital, organizes her community and raise money for her care, and is a strong advocate for her.  Without this individual, she would have had no way to navigate the bureaucracy this country has set to prevent deliver care to individuals without means.   I wonder how many other elderly people out there are in the same position she is in, not receiving the care they need because we are too short sighted to see that if we do not take care of these people, it will cost all of us much more in the long run. 

We need reasonable healthcare available to everyone living in this country.  We have to accept the fact that everyone living here constitutes our community and we have to take care of every individual living in our community.  Only then we can all prosper.

I do not even understand how one can turn a blind eye when one’s neighbor is going blind. 

Welcome to our journey. 

Hakan

There a many companies that provide solutions that integrate integrate with one (or more) RTLS providers.  The RTLS companies that are in the market can be divided up by many different criteria. The most common is the type of technology they are providing. Their approach to the market - that is if they are a hardware only provider that delivers their products through solution providers or they deliver both the hardware and the solution or a hybrid approach is also a criteria.  This article aims to identify only the companies that provide their own technologies to the market regardless if they are also application providers.  Take a look and comment away.

• Centrak: A relatively new entry to the market. Primary technologies used: RF & IR
• Sonitor: The only ultrasound provider. It is a Norwegian company with primary sales operations in US.
• Awarepoint: The only zigbee / mesh networking (RF) provider. They are typically direct to market.
• Aeroscout: Primarily WiFi, supplemented with Low Frequency RF and Ultrawide Band. Wide penetration in non-healthcare industries and good relationships with major networking providers such as Cisco
• Ekahau: Pure WiFi solution.
• Versus: The grand daddy of RTLS. Primary technologies used: IR & RF
• Radianse: One of the earlier vendors. Primary technologies used: IR & RF
• Radarfind: Pure RF technology with a mixed business model. 
• Ubisense:  Primarily non-healthcare Ultra Wide Band (UWB) provider. 
• Time Domain:  Big licensor of UWB RTLS solutions.  Aeroscout licenses their technology.

 Out of business (or haven't heard about them in a long while!)

• Parco:  UWB provider.  They were licensing their solution from other UWB providers.
• Pango:  One of the first WiFi based providers.  Merged with Innerwireless. Innerwireless seems to be a VAR of Aeroscout. 
• Exi:  Was a Canadian provider of RTLS solutions.  I think they first got purchased by Verichip, now their domain resolves to Xmark, provider of wander management and other security solutions. 

 I am pretty sure I am missing some.  Will add more in future posts.