Imagine being on the U.S.S. Starship Enterprise and a medical emergency occurs. How do you contact medical personnel in sick bay? Anyone who has watched the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” television series will tell you communication between crewmembers is a simple matter of using the communicator attached to your uniform. Forty years ago this technology was futuristic. In today’s hospitals, this technology is now a reality.
Communication between hospital personnel is a key component to providing quality care to patients. Throughout the course of a hospital shift, health care workers communicate with each other in order to meet patient needs and convey critical information. Most hospitals rely on a combination of call bell and paging systems wherein a patient rings the nursing station by pressing a button on the hospital bed or on a remote control. The patient’s call is put through to a nursing station where it is answered by a unit secretary or other staff member. The patient’s message is then relayed to the appropriate provider via a paging or cellular telephone system. This type of system is cumbersome and many times cause an interruption to the called medical provider who may also be working with other patients. However, the manner in which these communications occur has changed in recent years. The introduction of hands-free communication devices has improved team communication, work efficiency, and the quality of patient care by enabling health care workers to communicate information in a more effective and prompt manner (de Grood, Wallace and Friesen). One such hands-free communication device is a Vocera badge. …show more content…
“Vocera badges are the size of a large USB drive, usually worn around the neck like a security tag which enable voice communication with other staff. They run on a wireless network, work with voice commands, and are often linked to telephone systems” (Forsyth). At the beginning of a shift, a Vocera badge is placed around the user’s neck or attached to their collar and the user is asked to say or spell his or her first and last name. Vocera then indicates it is logging in the user. A button on the front of the device is pressed to initiate a call to another person in the facility. This person can be reached simply by stating the person’s name or function in the system (Ernst, Weiss and Reitsema). Vocera consists of two main components: the Vocera system software and the unique Vocera communications badge. Features of the badge include the following: • Voice controls, providing hands-free ability to answer incoming calls • Ability to designate the party to be called by name, title, function, or group, eliminating the need to know phone numbers or who is on duty • Conference calling, broadcast messages, and voice mail messaging, facilitating group announcements • Ability to call to and from the badge through the Private Branch exchange (PBX) to other phones inside and outside the hospital (Breslin, Greskovich and Turisco). First and foremost, Vocera allows members of the health care team, such as doctors, nurses, patient care assistants, therapists, and unit secretaries, to communicate more effectively. Team communication and work efficiency go hand in hand to improve the quality of patient care. Vocera enables health care workers to communicate directly with each other versus relying on text messages or pages. If a health care worker is unable to take a call, a voice message can be left by the calling party. Messages can also be sent without the need to speak directly with the person being called. Patient needs …show more content…
A prominent finding showed nurses using Vocera in a number of ways besides communication for work-related issues. For example, nurses were observed organizing meetings and conducting conversations through the Vocera badges when face-to-face communications was not convenient. This confirms prior research related to the adoption of new information technologies that suggests users often think of new ways to use technologies, ways originally not intended or conceived by the designers (Orlikowski). The possibilities are endless now that hands-free communication devices have been shown to improve team communication, work efficiency, and the quality of patient care by enabling health care workers to communicate information in a more effective and prompt manner. In the words of Captain Kirk, Vocera is poised “to boldly go where no man has gone before”