KTwo Technology Solutions launched 'Kshema-Track' ZigBee based patient flow and asset tracking solution recently. The product is an advanced Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) with radio frequency identification technology (RFID). The company has already bagged an order from a large international hospital chain (name withheld) and also has around five prospective customers for the solution.

ZigBee works on a low power radio frequency and is a safe technology. It is approved for use in hospitals, labs and intensive care units (ICUs).It coexists with existing Radio Frequency Identification solutions hence the total cost of ownership for the Hospital is low. Various other sensors like temperature, humidity, motion, jerk sensors can be integrated in the ZigBee tags for greater effectiveness

Kshema-Track co-exists with the hospitals existing RFID and Hospital Information Management Systems software.

The hospitals can start with a minimal investment and can see returns in terms of plug in revenue loss, increased productivity and operational efficiency, Anant Koppar, chairman & CEO, KTwo Technology Solutions, told Pharmabiz in an email interaction.

The company has devised a marketing strategy where it will go with three partners in the healthcare space to generate its initial sales. These partners are a large international hospital chain, Freescale for the ZigBee Technology and a large US-based Systems Integration Firm with wide spread operations in India who will be associated for the installation. The solutions are tailor-made keeping in mind the complex and changing requirements of the hospital sector.

RFID is a slightly old technology and the ZigBee technology has addressed most of the grey areas of RFID like high power consumption, high cost of ownership. In fact, ZigBee solution can co-exist with the RFID technology, stated Koppar.

The total strength of the team which was associated with the development of Kshema-Track' ZigBee comprised five developers, one team leader and one project manager.

Currently, there are similar solutions in the market, but most of them are standalone systems. However in the case of KTwo, it has integrated the same in its HIMS product 'Kshema-21'. This is a major advantage for hospitals because they will now be able to get a full fledged HIMS along with the Patient Flow and Asset Tracking System.

In early 2008, the company had launched software for pathology known as CytoSight which is shown good demand from customers. The software which is now solar powered and GPRS enabled, makes it eco-friendly and independent of connectivity and power. It is simple to install and easy to use. CytoSight which is a suite of products assists the technician or pathologist to accurately segment and classify cell images to automatically process identify and analyze the images.