State-of-the-Art Disaster Management System Rolled out at 20 Washington Hospitals, Fire and Police Stations

SKANEATELES FALLS, N.Y.--Jan. 9, 2006--Hand Held Products, Inc., a leader in image-based mobile data collection systems, announced a partnership with the Iomedex Corporation to enable first responders to provide faster care in disaster zones through a state-of-the-art patient tracking and responder credentialing system.

The solution, called Mobile Incident Response Information System (MobileIRIS(TM)), was recently rolled out to twenty Eastside agencies in the state of Washington, including hospitals, fire, and police departments. IRIS was developed by Iomedex and runs on Hand Held Products' Dolphin(TM) 9500 series mobile computers, powered by Adaptus(TM) Imaging Technology.

As a first responder, Eastside Fire & Rescue is using MobileIRIS(TM) with 31 Dolphin 9500s to quickly initiate new patient records at the scene of the injury, enabling cooperating agencies to share information and ultimately improve patient care. The Dolphin 9500 units are used by paramedics and first responders to record patient information, incident location, treatment, and capture photos of the individual and their injuries.

"Incident scenes always possess the potential for confusion and chaos. Being first on the scene we require easy-to-use solutions such as IRIS and the Dolphin 9500 to not only help us act quickly and efficiently, but to bring control to the environment as well," said Alex Tierra of Redmond Fire. "It takes longer for patients to answer our questions than it does to input their information into the system. The convenience of the one-touch barcode scanning and imaging process is the difference that makes it possible for us to integrate the IRIS solution into our everyday response activities."

After being entered into the Dolphin 9500, the encrypted information is wirelessly transmitted to participating hospitals and emergency operation centers (EOCs) through the IRIS network. Hospital staff are granted access to a scoreboard of injuries, which ranks patients in order of priority using an internationally recognized color-code system.

"Transmitting detailed patient information ahead of time speeds up the flow of information and arms hospitals with the necessary information to treat patients as soon as they arrive at the facility," said Del Wilson, CEO of Iomedex. Prior to using MobileIRIS(TM), hospital staff did not have a platform to review patient information in the field during a mass casualty incident. Gaps in the information exchange result in patients being misrouted to overloaded facilities or locations not capable of treating certain traumas.

"IRIS prevents injured people from getting lost in the chaos; the information is shared with all agencies and every patient is tracked from the point of origin until their final destination point at a treatment center or hospital," said Valeria Novotny-Dinsdale, Emergence Department Clinical Nurse Specialist for Overlake Hospital Medical Center. "The IRIS system has the added benefit of being able to help reunite family members and loved ones after a disaster."

"In teaming up with Iomedex, we are hoping to make a real difference by enabling first responders and hospitals to be more organized when responding to the aftermath of catastrophic events caused by natural disasters or terrorism," said Kevin Ahearn, VP/GM of Mobile & Wireless, Hand Held Products.

About Hand Held Products

With headquarters in Central New York, Hand Held Products is a worldwide leading manufacturer of image based data collection systems for mobile, wireless, and transaction processing solutions. Through its proprietary Adaptus(TM) Imaging Technology platform, Hand Held Products is dedicated to delivering innovative imaging solutions, reliability and durability to its customers and partners through more than 30 sales offices and hundreds of resellers. Hand Held Products is a privately held company and is represented in every major market and geographic region of the world. To find out how Hand Held Products can help you at the point-of-sale, on the sales floor, in the warehouse or on the delivery truck, call us at 1-800-582-4263. Or visit us at handheld.com.

This material contains forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in this publication. While Hand Held Products believes its statements to be reliable, all information/projections/statements/opinions expressed herein are based on information available as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice.