Wireless Communicator Saves Medical Staff Valuable Time
More than 750 People At Washington Regional Medical Center Have Star Trek-Style Communicator
Last updated Friday, August 12, 2005 9:37 PM CDT in Business
By John L. Moore
The Morning News
Registered Nurse Lisa Lambert doesn't look like a Vulcan, but the small communicator badge she uses at Washington Regional Medical Center works like something straight out of Star Trek.
It's not quite as compact as the small badge worn by the Next Generation crew, but it weighs less than two ounces and is just more than an inch wide.
And it will even play the kooky transporter noise from the original television show if a staff member says, "Beam me up Scotty."
The device, however, is not science fiction, but a real world technology made by Cupertino, Calif.-based Vocera that uses wireless local area networks, or WiFi, to allow voice communication.
Hospital staff can call within the network in the building or make outside calls, and they never have to physically dial a number. Vocera uses a voice recognition system.
"Nurses can be resistant to change, but when they told us about this, I said hallelujah," said Lambert, an intensive care unit nurse at Washington Regional.
The system takes advantage of the wireless network that was installed in the building when the hospital was built, said Chief Information Officer Becky Magee.
The total cost of the system, which requires a software license and the communicators, works out to $300 to $400 per unit, said Brent Lang, vice president of marketing for privately held Vocera.
Magee said the investment in the device is well worth it to provide care workers in the hospital with a hands-free mobile communication system.
Several other hospitals around the state have started using the system. Arkansas Children's Hospital was the first to adopt the technology, Lang said.
Lang said Washington Regional is the only hospital using the technology in Northwest Arkansas, but he expects there will be more in the future.
Darrell Leonhardt, chief information officer for Arkansas Children's Hospital, said the hospital has about 150 badges and uses them with highly mobile staff in the hospital. Operating room staff, radiologists and nursing units use the devices, he said.
The device is particularly helpful in operating rooms where cellular phones can not be used because of interference with medical equipment, Leonhardt said. He said the device works well, but one disadvantage is a certain lack of privacy. Although a person can wear a headset with the device, it's not as comfortable for many people as using a phone, he said.
The hospital also has a few wireless-network phones. The soft phones, however, don't have the advantage of hands-free use.
"It depends on what type of use the person has and what they intend to do with it," he said.
Karen Schmidt, a nurse educator at Washington Regional, said staff may have to make 15 to 20 phone calls a day to get vital information related to patient care. Although telephones are located in patient rooms, staff avoid using them because they are there for the convenience of the patients, Schmidt said.
Cell phones and pagers both require staff to stop what they're doing and use their hands to take calls or check a message, Schmidt said. The voice activated Vocera system allows nurses to continue working and still communicate with other staff.
Schmidt said staff have been trained to avoid mentioning personal details that might identify a patient while using Vocera around other people. Magee also said the wireless network has strong security to prevent anyone not authorized onto the system.
The expense of installing a wireless network is often not an impediment once a hospital or other business decides they need Vocera for their mobile workers, Lang said.
Vocera, founded in March 2000, has about $37 million in venture capital and 75 employees. The first Vocera system rolled out in 2002 and the company has about 200 customers using the technology.
"Our largest customer has over 3,000 people on the system with 1,800 badges," Lang said.
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