‘Badge’ that enables staff communication
The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is to become the first UK
hospital to enable staff to contact each other instantly through a
voice-activated, wearable ‘badge’.
The hands-free device (pictured), supplied by California-based Vocera
Communications, weighs less than two ounces and operates on a wireless
LAN. By simply saying a person’s name or department, users are
automatically connected to the appropriate person and can speak to them
as if they were using a phone.
The product, called BT Managed Vocera, offers many advantages over
other technologies. Paging, for instance, can be slow and disruptive;
walkie-talkies can compromise security; and communicating with a mobile
phone is often prohibited in hospitals for fear of interference with
critical equipment.
Using this system, staff will no longer have to remember phone numbers
or stop what they are doing to make or receive a call. Vocera can
broadcast to a number of people, such as a team of specialists, when a
hasty decision is needed. It can also find staff by function and
location, giving people the ability to, for example, call the nearest
nurse or doctor.
The Truro-based Trust is linking the system to its existing workflow
management system, so its text-to-voice facility can be used to send,
for example, porters details of their next job, wherever they are in the
hospital.
The system is based on a BT wireless LAN and uses mobile Voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.
“BT Managed Vocera shows how the use of new or existing wireless LANs
can be easily extended to offer a voice service which can be a real boon
to productivity for hospital personnel”, said Steve Wells, Sales
Director at BT Health.
The system is expected to improve productivity by offering
significant time and cost savings over alternative methods of
communications.
Source: bjhc&im May 2006
Disclaimer
|