Committed to providing the highest quality healthcare services for over 40 years, it wasn't a surprise when one of Southern California's prominent medical centers chose to embrace leading-edge technology to improve communications management. The project involved the install, configuration and integration of the Vocera Communication System with the hospital's existing Wi-Fi and legacy PBX phone system. The system allows users to communicate instantly via hands-free, voice-activated "badges" worn on the collars of nurses and ancillary personnel. The Vocera Communication System includes a mixture of voice recognition software and hardware in which users can communicate via a standard wireless 802.11b local area network. The users' names, groups and departments are defined and then configured within the Vocera Server. The badges worn by personnel have the ability to communicate via the wireless access points that are positioned in the desired coverage areas of the hospital. Another compliment to the Vocera System is the fact that the users can initiate and receive calls to and from internal PBX extensions, external local and long distance phone numbers and pagers. This is achieved by the integration of the Vocera System with any PBX or VoIP phone system over digital or analog lines. The deployment of the new technology required selecting a systems integrator with both telephony and networking expertise as well as certification as a reseller of the solution. After receiving a strong recommendation, the medical center selected Vector Resources, Inc. "Communications is critical; it could mean life or death. There is no room for error when deploying a new communications system," said the Director of Information Services at the medical center. "We felt confident that Vector's knowledge of the Vocera solution combined with their systems integration expertise would guarantee a smooth implementation with minimal down time."

Solution Overview

Once the medical center retained Vector Resources to assist with the implementation and deployment of the Vocera solution, the systems integrator began by helping the center determine the network upgrades necessary to implement the Vocera system. Because the system integrates with an existing Wi-Fi network Vector needed to ensure the medical center's wireless infrastructure could support the system effectively. Components of the project included: Configuration of the Vocera software and set up of a compatible server Providing a wireless infrastructure site survey to ensure complete coverage of the hospital in which Vocera users would work and roam Systems training for the IS staff, clinicians as well as ongoing support Ease of growth; the ability to expand the system quickly and easily as the company added incremental users Ensuring installation occurred within a reasonable budget and narrow implementation timeframe

Technical Detail

Vector Resources consulted the medical facility's IT staff on upgrading their existing wireless network by adding more wireless access points to provide complete coverage within designated areas of the hospital, provided a network analysis of their core and edge switches and configured VLANs to segregate the voice and data traffic to support over 450 users on the Vocera System. Vector Resources also configured and integrated the Vocera System with their existing legacy PBX system that supports up to (12) analog lines.

Results

Since Vector understood the needs of the client clearly, and the medical facility was open to adopting new, cutting-edge technologies, the facility has improved the communication flow between nurses and other staff, resulting in increased productivity, enhanced patient care, and potentially life-saving benefits. One example of a timesaving solution utilizing Vocera can be illustrated as follows: A patient arrives in the Emergency Room. After an examination, it is determined that he/she needs to be admitted to the hospital. The charge nurse in the ER can be instantly connected to the charge nurse of the receiving floor to check bed availability. If a bed is available but needs to be cleaned, the receiving charge nurse can be instantly connected to Housekeeping to complete the task. As a result, the wait time for the patient to be admitted to that bed is decreased which, in turn, increases patient and family satisfaction and employee morale. The facility is now beginning a new pilot program that targets physicians, security and additional personnel.