Aether Provides 'Mobile Medicine' to Wake Forest's Future Doctors

First-of-its-Kind Program Teaches Wake's Medical Students How Mobile Computing Addresses the Challenges of Modern Healthcare

Aether Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:AETH), the leading provider of wireless data products and services, today announced that Wake Forest University (WFU) School of Medicine, consistently ranked among America's best medical schools, has successfully deployed Aether's ScoutWare(TM) solution to bring mobile computing into its renowned medical training curriculum. Under this first-of-its- kind program, Wake Forest is using Aether's ScoutWare synchronization and data management software to enable medical students to record patient and clinical training data "on the job" through the use of mobile handheld devices.

"We recognize the immense benefits realized by empowering our student population with instant access to educational information and critical patient data through the use of mobile handheld devices," said Johannes M. Boehme, Associate Dean for Academic Computing and Information Science, WFU School of Medicine.

The Medical School is an integral part of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, a major regional tertiary care center. As students at the Medical School enter their third year of medical training - moving out of the classroom and into hands-on clinical situations - they need a flexible and accurate way to track their training and clinical activities as required by the accreditation standards of the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).

Wake Forest turned to Aether to help develop a mobile application that constantly tracks students' learning activities, including medical procedures and patient progress. Students carry Palm handheld computing devices to record important data while at the hospital or clinic, and then transmit the day's information to the Medical School's centralized database by placing the devices into cradles located throughout the Medical Center. Both students and faculty can then easily review the information at any time, effectively tracking patient treatment programs and students' progress toward fulfilling their training requirements.

Presently, all of the more than 100 students of the class of 2002 are using these Palm devices.

"In addition to tracking the students' learning process, the program has enabled students to monitor patient diseases and other ailments from the outset and observe their progression with amazing accuracy," said James N. Thompson, MD, Dean of the School of Medicine. "This groundbreaking patient management program has helped to further the mission of Wake Forest to keep its medical students connected and learning no matter where they are, while also improving the quality of clinical training our students receive."

The ScoutWare application for Wake Forest also includes the following features:

--Built-in security measures that ensure compliance with proposed HIPAA regulations and guarantee privacy of information by making access to each student's Palm device specific to that individual student;

--The capability for students to individually load software that provides additional reference material which can be accessed during training procedures;

--Device management capabilities that enable program administrators to update and add applications remotely via wireline synchronization.

Mobile computing is already making its mark in the healthcare industry, and Aether's ScoutWare solution is helping many hospitals and health care organizations realize the benefits this new technology provides. In addition to educational improvements, mobile applications are currently being used in hospitals to reduce medical error rates by 75 - 80 percent, dramatically improving the quality of patient care.

Wake Forest is the first medical school in the nation to fully implement a program in which students utilize mobile applications throughout the course of their clinical training.

"Aether is pleased to help Wake Forest University Medical School set the standard for mobile computing in medical education," said Larry Roshfeld, Senior Vice President, Products, Aether Systems. "Aether is continuing to expand its mobile and wireless solutions to empower doctors, nurses, medical schools, hospitals and other caregivers to meet the challenging demands of modern healthcare."

Aether has worked with device manufacturer BD, formerly Becton Dickinson, to develop the Rx and Dx Programs that utilize mobile computing technology to track prescription dispensation and specimen collection for hospitals. Not only does this solution reduce medical error rates, it frees up nurses and caregivers to spend more time at the bedside, rather than behind a desk. Aether has also worked with Sonic Innovations, a leading hearing aid manufacturer, to enable audiologists to remotely adjust and tune customer devices, regardless of location.


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