HID Global®, a leading company providing reliable identity solutions, has recently unveiled its new Internet of Things (IoT) based BEEKs™ Duress Badge Beacon that helps hospitals protect nurses, doctors, and other staff from any dangerous or threatening situations that may arise in the hospital premises.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the new IoT-based BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) duress is designed to provide easy and speedy way for hospital workers to transmit security staff real-time distress alerts from anywhere around the premises in case of emergencies.
Reportedly, the duress beacon, enabled by Bluvision™ (a part of HID Global), is the newest add-on in the HID Location Services Internet of Things platform, that supports in streamlining and enabling multiple site services applications in a unified healthcare IoT ecosystem. Sources cite that the new BLE beacon can either be used on its own or integrated into access control cards that are already in use.
Clinicians or staff members just need to press the back of their badge to immediately activate a duress alert, which then identifies them and their locations comprising the parking garage, inside hospital, and other configured areas, for instant action by the security crew.
According to John Sailer, Chief Operating Officer, Bluvision, an effective response system is critical to hold back high-risk situations escalating into workplace, however, deploying safety hospital system are often expensive, in turn creating a significant barrier in adopting duress solution. He further added that HID’s new beacon is built on the company’s end-to-end IoT platform which helps hospitals in real-time duress detection and other alerts, thereby simplifying the personnel safety concerns in hospitals.
As per a report by HID Group, the company’s duress badge solution with real-time location services is in high demand beyond healthcare sector. HID claims that the hospitality market, including hotels and restaurants, is another area where staff are highly vulnerable to workplace duress.
It has been reported that the beacon supports Eddystone (Google), sBeacon (Bluvision), iBeacon (Apple) protocols and identifies the location of user to 2 meters.
