Github rtls

 The assets and all intellectual property of Parco Merged Media Corp. were sold to Affiliated Commercial Services Incorporated.  And they are now available for download at Github.

The intellectual property acquired dates back to 2000 when the ideas were originally conceived as part of Parco Merged Media LLC (a California company.) The business plan and intellectual property were conveyed to Parco Merged Media Corporation in April 2001.

The original concept of Parco Merged Media (also called Parco Wireless) was to standardize location information and create a standard interface for many types of real-time location systems. The inspiration for the software architecture originated from video game roots combined with a high-frequency stock arbitraging system. The approach of treating radio-based real-time location and tracking as a three-dimensional database was unique at the time; other competitors used choke-point technology and flat, non-hierarchical mapping methodologies. The developers' approach of real-world location with real-world mapping tied the virtual data to the real world. The company built several versions of software beginning in April 2001. During the development of the original software, it became apparent that it would be cost-prohibitive to build custom software for each new installation. As a result, the company began developing a software development kit (SDK) to aid in rapid product development for new system installations.

Around 2002, after the Federal Communications Commission approved ultra-wideband for unlicensed commercial usage, Parco began marketing its software/intellectual property along with a first-to-market ultra-wideband location system from Multispectral Solutions Inc. (now owned by Zebra).

Many of the Parco Merged Media Corp. designs released via the web in 2002 are referenced in several patents as prior artwork. In 2003, Parco Merged Media was awarded Best New Technology by MESDA.

Prior to all of these accolades, in 2001, Parco Merged Media was the first to conceptualize and develop a "trigger" for creating location-based events(sm). This idea was formulated following a fatal injury inflicted upon a child in an MRI chamber caused by the magnetic forces attracting a metal cylinder. The company developed two types of triggers: fixed and portable. In addition to the triggers, the company also built a database of "zones" representing fixed geospatial areas such as buildings, floors, wings, and rooms, which could be layered hierarchically. These triggers have higher priority and can be used in real-time to create location-based events(sm) to drive processes such as turning off an MRI machine, automatically closing doors, or sounding alarms. The triggers are designed to be independent of the zones database, although an authorized developer could develop a disk-based triggers database.

The zones database became important after September 11, 2001, because it could contain specific building information for emergency responders following a mass casualty event. The zones database is designed to be used as a freestanding system and in conjunction with a real-time location system. The zones database also included images (including maps) of the areas represented by the points in the database. In some instances, these images are floor images, and in others, they are maps of cities. In July 2002, Senators John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Christopher Bond (R-Missouri) invited the company to the first Small Business Homeland Security Expo to demonstrate this unique software. Since these humble beginnings, developers have built many types of interfaces to the system using the zones database's maps as the image resource.

The US Government was the earliest user of Parco Merged Media's intellectual property through a federally funded grant at the Washington Hospital Center (Washington, DC) via the Federal Emergency Management Agency (formerly FEMA, now the Department of Homeland Security). The requirements of the program drove Parco Merged Media to develop a scalable system both in terms of design architecture and data handling capabilities. All software components can be run on a single machine or scaled to run across multiple machines at multiple sites; and the systems can be implemented in a redundant/fault-tolerant configuration. The system is capable of handling millions of transactions simultaneously when configured as such. For example, at one client site, the system processed more than 20,000 tag location messages per second, or 630,720,000,000 per year; at another site, the system in a simulated environment was able to process more than 1,000,000 tag location messages per second.

The Parco Merged Media software also contains a software developers kit (SDK). This toolkit enables the easy integration of real-time location data, triggers, and zones into existing applications. Many companies have developed against this SDK to demonstrate the strength of their software and capabilities, including Nortel, Microsoft, and Cisco (HIMSS 2005 Demonstration by John Chambers). The zones and triggers are not limited to input solely from Parco Wireless SDK; a programmer can input data into the system's database from other developer application programmer interfaces (API) including Google Maps(tm)(c) and then use the Parco Wireless toolkit to drive location-based events(sm) from GPS data available from many third-party providers. Tools such as Google Maps can be used to display data from the Parco Wireless zones/trigger database including tags and points.

In 2007, the company submitted several provisional patent applications to the USPTO referencing the copyrighted materials created/generated/deployed since 2000. Around mid-2008, the software revisions had reached a fourth generation of software. At this point, the company was forced into an involuntary dissolution. Following this event, the Parco Merged Media software, all of its assets, and intellectual property were sold to Affiliated Commercial Services Inc. (ACSI).

ACSI is now supporting the Parco Merged Media software packages. The systems are living in the cloud, and several customers are using its strengths to build systems used for asset management, personnel management, and intelligent transportation systems. ACSI has a mature, 4th generation system which is field-tested and very capable. Please contact us to discuss partnering on potential projects.

Parco: Revolutionizing Healthcare with Advanced Wireless Solutions

Introduction

Welcome to Parco, a leader in providing cutting-edge wireless solutions tailored to the healthcare industry. Our mission is to empower healthcare providers with innovative technology that enhances patient care, improves operational efficiency, and ensures compliance with stringent industry standards.

About Us

At Parco, we understand the unique challenges faced by the healthcare sector. Traditional wireless standards such as IEEE802.11 and Bluetooth often fall short of meeting the strict requirements for patient privacy and cost control. To address this, Parco integrates ultra-wideband technology with RFID software applications, offering a robust long-term solution that meets the demands of modern healthcare.

Our Solutions

Real-Time Location System (RTLS)

In emergencies and everyday operations, knowing the status and exact location of patients, caregivers, and essential equipment is crucial. Parco's RTLS provides unprecedented control over your assets, enhancing disaster preparedness and improving financial outcomes. Our RTLS ensures that you have real-time visibility of all critical components within your healthcare facility, ensuring seamless operations and optimal patient care.

RFID Wireless Healthcare Communication System

The RFID Wireless Healthcare Communication System by Parco impacts workflow throughout the healthcare delivery system. By extending LAN architecture to the edge of patient care, our system opens the door to immediate productivity gains. With the unique application of .NET technology, RFID enables seamless information movement into and out of data repositories, creating significant opportunities to expand and extend existing investments in CRM and ERP technologies.

Services

Parco offers a comprehensive range of services designed to support your healthcare facility's technological needs. From system implementation to ongoing support, our team of experts is dedicated to ensuring that your transition to advanced wireless solutions is smooth and successful. We provide customized consulting services to help you maximize the benefits of our technology, ensuring that your operations are efficient, secure, and compliant with industry regulations.

Contact Us

Ready to transform your healthcare facility with Parco's advanced wireless solutions? Contact us today to learn more about how our technology can help you achieve your goals. Our team is here to answer your questions and provide the support you need to implement our innovative solutions successfully.

With UWB as the backbone, this same system provides the most robust asset management tool in the healthcare and safety industries. The UWB aspects along with a proprietary self-assembling network capability and software allow Parco to assemble systems in an ad-hoc setting using special gateways, transceivers, and location tags. In practical terms, the Parco systems can locate crucial assets in real-time, in very large buildings such as hospitals, and in open environments such as disaster areas. There is very little engineering involved in setting up the infrastructure, in terms of time or cost.

Essentially, the Parco system allows the entire infrastructure to be set up quickly and inexpensively. Once the gateways and antennas are in place, small tags are attached to critical medical equipment (or personnel) that allows for an accounting of their exact location with resolutions to below one-foot accuracy in a three-dimensional environment. The three-dimensional capabilities are unique to the Parco product. This level of accuracy is crucial in healthcare settings and creates efficiencies in locating and managing thousands of assets (doctors, nurses, technicians, medical equipment, etc.) in hospitals and in emergency disaster management situations. The Parco system is extremely low power (1 microwatt or less), and because of the UWB component, will not interfere with other sensitive spectrum in the hospitals. For this, Parco is the only wireless solution that can safely operate in cardiac and telemetry units without apprehension of interference with existing medical devices.

A recent study conducted on Parco's behalf showed that a typical 950-bed hospital employs approximately 300 IV pumps at any given time at a cost of close to $25 for each device per day. This same hospital must keep available some 600 pumps on hand at all times to sufficiently serve their patient population. These studies show that if all IV pumps can be accounted for at all times, the actual number of pumps needed to be kept on hand can be reduced to approximately 330. This represents more than $2 million in annual savings for the hospital.

This same study also pointed out that of the 300 beds using the IV pumps daily, typically less than 150 patients were actually paying for the per day cost to the hospital. The Parco system can help the typical 900-bed hospital recover almost $8 million of annual lost charges simply by conveying precisely when and where the pump is set up and in use. The return on investment for the hospital is realized within the first few months of operation. Similar savings and recovery on lost charges can be expected with other medical equipment such as pulse oximeters, EKG machines, wheelchairs, etc.

Inherent with this same system is the ability to detect and track critical equipment and objects equipped with the Parco transceiver devices. In the event of a tagged entity entering a hazardous area or situation, the system is competent in recognizing the potential for harm. In these instances, the system is capable of making logical comparisons of all the tagged entities in close proximity to each other. If the potential for a hazard is determined to exist, the system automatically shuts down critical systems, closes access points, sets off alarms or alerts, and neutralizes the threat of harm.A hospital's Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine creates a very powerful magnetic field when in operation. Metal objects must be kept away from the machine as they present a physical threat to the patient whereas metal objects can be drawn to the center of the magnet. In the past, hospital patients have been injured or killed after being struck by flying metal objects inadvertently introduced into the MRI's magnetic field. Metal objects such as wheelchairs and oxygen cylinders could be tagged with UWB transceivers, along with the MRI unit and the patient. Should an oxygen cylinder unintentionally get in close proximity to the MRI unit, the intelligence built into the Parco system would recognize this hazard and respond automatically by setting off the appropriate alarms while instinctively powering off all critical systems to the MRI unit, thereby defusing the threat. Comparable defenses could be put in place in many other areas of the facility.

Security and access control is inherent with the Parco system. Very small trigger areas can be predefined in the system near points of entry and exit in many types of facilities. A virtual trigger area is set whereas individuals entering or exiting the facility place his or her tag into a hot spot near the door (as well as the entire area facing the door may be designated a trigger area). Since the hot spot is defined as a virtual area in space, there are not any special readers required to be installed or hard-wired into the building. The individual may hold the tag to an area near the door defined by a small sign placed on the wall. The software is capable of determining the presence of the tag entering the virtual trigger area and the identity of the individual associated with the transceiver, his/her right of entry level, and the appropriate admittance assessment to be made relative to the individual's positive identification. The system is capable of making a knowledgeable decision as to whether to allow or deny entry based upon a predetermined set of protection rules. If entry is approved, the system is capable of automatically unlocking or opening the door. Denied entries are logged as to the time of day and the profile involved.Once inside the facility, the individual sporting the tag is accounted for at every step of the way. Exceptions can be determined that restrict the movements of the individual in the facility. A visitor to a hospital may be permitted to travel in the building from the main entrance of the facility to a family member's room or patient unit. Other allowances may include permissions to visit the hospital's cafeteria or chapel. Should the visitor deviate from the permitted areas of travel, the guest is advised of the contravention by an automated voice response system or audible alert from the transceiver. As well, the Security Department is automatically alerted.

In addition to reporting their exact location, and without making any modifications to the hardware, these same transceivers are also capable of wirelessly sending and receiving data from the associated entity to which it is attached. A tag connected to a hospital patient's heart monitoring device is capable of relaying the apparatus' output data wirelessly to other software databases such as an electronic patient medical record, or electronic billing systems. Similar data collection can take place with hospital IV pumps, EEG machines, pulse oximeters, and other diagnostic equipment. Due to the two-way data capabilities of the transceivers, control packets could be sent wirelessly from a central command. An IV pump could be instructed to automatically dispense a prescribed medication based upon feedback information it receives from the patient's output device.Unlike Bluetooth and IEEE802.11 standards, or other wireless technologies currently in use today, Parco's ultra-wide band pulsed signals are immune to eavesdropping, interference or jamming. The stealthy features of the Parco system make it extremely valuable in healthcare settings as hospitals struggle with meeting government mandated patient privacy rules. Due to the random nature of Parco's timing schemes, there appears to be virtually no limit to the number of UWB signals that can share the same airwaves. This translates into several thousand tags being simultaneously tracked by the Parco system at any one given time.Every mobile phone works today by using spread spectrum which involves splitting a broadcast among many radio frequencies. But where spread spectrum uses just a few dozen frequencies and uses them one at a time, the Parco system uses multiple frequencies and uses them all at the same time. This means the data-carrying capacity of UWB is weighty, up to 10 megabits per second! This is enough bandwidth to move all types of diagnostic images and other patient data fast across the network, putting it in front of the doctor within seconds. When every second counts, the Parco system comes through reliably, efficiently, and securely.