Hill-Rom Extends Smart Bed Features for High-Tech Hospital Rooms

BATESVILLE, Ind., March 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today, Hill-Rom (NYSE: HRC) announced the extension of its smart room technology to provide a choice of solutions that connect the smart bed and other medical devices to the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) on both a wired and a wireless platform.

Hill-Rom's approach provides customers with a choice between wired and wireless solutions without the need for expensive middleware from other vendors.  The Hill-Rom connectivity platform creates options for hospital staffs to choose the solution that is optimal for their existing hospital IT infrastructure. In turn, this technology can improve the clinical workflow for nurses and reduce the clinical documentation burden for front-line caregivers by automating medical device data transmission to the EMR.  

Hill-Rom's fleet of seven smart beds offers connectivity at every level of care from low acuity through the Intensive Care Unit.  Additional unique benefits include:

• More than 30 real time data elements, including the industry's only integrated air surface information, head of bed angle, patient weight, and bed status information  
• Communication between smart beds and the EMR to streamline clinical workflows
• Timely and accurate clinical bed data with reduced documentation burden on the hospital staff
• Actionable information to caregivers for preventing adverse events through in-room alerts and centralized status boards for enhanced protocol management

"From a flexibility and cost perspective, our customers win.  They have the freedom to choose wired or wireless direct bed connectivity to their EMR without needing to purchase additional products from multiple vendors adding to the bottomline value," explained Mike Gallup, vice president and general manager for Hill-Rom IT Solutions. "Additionally, the amount of actionable information coupled with patient safety applications provide caregivers the tools they need to impact outcomes."

The Hill-Rom connectivity expertise extends beyond smart bed connectivity to also include wireless medical devices to enable the smart room of the future.  Hill-Rom's NaviCare^® Smart Hub™ solution is the industry's first commercially available solution for wireless device connectivity into the EMR. The NaviCare Smart Hub solution provides access to legacy and new medical device data to create improved device management; timely, accurate and seamless medical device data delivery; and critical device notifications and protocol alerts that can be sent directly to caregivers.  

"The Smart Hub technology aims to significantly decrease the data entry burden on a hospital's front-line caregivers and improve clinical workflows," added Gallup.  "This technology is making a difference in the ability for caregivers to deliver smart, safe and easy care."

ABOUT HILL-ROM HOLDINGS, INC.

Hill-Rom is a leading worldwide manufacturer and provider of medical technologies and related services for the health care industry, including patient support systems, safe mobility and handling solutions, non-invasive therapeutic products for a variety of acute and chronic medical conditions, medical equipment rentals and information technology solutions.  Hill-Rom's comprehensive product and service offerings are used by health care providers across the health care continuum and around the world in hospitals, extended care facilities and home care settings to enhance the safety and quality of patient care.

Hill-Rom…enhancing outcomes for patients and their caregivers.

www.hill-rom.com

Disclosure Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release contain forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, regarding the Company's future plans, objectives, beliefs, expectations, representations and projections.  The Company has tried, wherever possible, to identify these forward-looking statements using words such as "intend," "anticipate," "believe," "plan," "encourage," "expect," "may," "goal," "become," "pursue," "estimate," "strategy," "will," "projection," "forecast," "continue," "accelerate," "promise," "increase," "higher," "lower," "reduce," "improve," "expand," "progress," "potential" or the negative of those terms or other variations of them or by comparable terminology.  The absence of such terms, however, does not mean that the statement is not forward-looking.  It is important to note that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those set forth in any forward-looking statements.  Factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements include but are not limited to: the Company's dependence on its relationships with several large group purchasing organizations, whether the Company's new products are successful in the marketplace, impacts of healthcare reform, compliance with federal healthcare programs, collections of accounts receivable, compliance with FDA regulations, antitrust litigation, potential exposure to product liability or other claims, failure of the Company's announced or future strategic initiatives and restructuring and realignment activities to achieve expected growth, efficiencies or cost reductions, adverse consequences resulting from the spin-off of the funeral services business, failure of the Company to execute its acquisition and business alliance strategy through the consummation and successful integration of acquisitions or entry into joint ventures or other business alliances, increased costs or unavailability of raw materials, adverse changes in global economic conditions or disruptions of credit markets, labor disruptions, the ability to retain executive officers and other key personnel, liquidity of auction rate securities, and certain tax-related matters.  For a more in depth discussion of these and other factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in forward-looking statements, see the discussions under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's previously filed Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2009, and the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2009.  The Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Hill-Rom

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