Teaching an Old Nurse Call System New Tricks

Nurse Call Bell: The author with a one-of-a-kind “more call bell” shirt

You’d be surprised at what your system can do, regardless of the vintage.
A System Installed in 1998 or 2003 Can Still Provide Excellent Data
We are often asked by customers or nurse call integrators whether analytics that is not enriched by ADT (Admission, Discharges, and Transfer), RTLS, or smartphone connectivity is of any real value. To this, we emphatically say, “Absolutely!”
However, that was rarely the case.
Even 1990s-era nurse call systems are capable of storing, sending, and saving information that informs your team about patient-related nurse call events—including room/bed, time, duration (which may be difficult for some older systems), and severity (e.g., level of urgency or priority). The fundamental nurse call mechanics that allow your system to illuminate corridor lights and create audible tones and notification turns out to be a foundation for the understanding of patient and staff interactivity.
Click here to discover four valuable initiatives (Patient Safety, Alarm Fatigue and False Alarms, Improve Staff Response Time, and Staff Performance) and the data points that can be harvested from varying vintage systems.

Kenny Schiff is the Founder and CEO of CareSight. A 20-year veteran of the healthcare technology business, Kenny is considered by his customers and peers to be a no-nonsense, trusted resource who can be counted on to deliver complex solutions with high impact. His team pioneered managed services to clinical communications customers starting in 2003. Visionary always, but never afraid to be hands-on, CareSight is a great creative platform for Kenny’s entrepreneurial and technical passions.

Heather Downey, MS, RN is CareSight’s Manager of Clinical Informatics. She brings to CareSight’s Clinical Solutions Practice her experience as part of the Northwell Health’s CIO’s Office Clinical Informatics Team and as an RN Staff Nurse for Huntington Hospital. Heather’s CareSight work focuses on creating customized analytic dashboards and reporting tools that align with customer initiatives, analyzing data and identifying process improvement areas, and providing ongoing post-implementation services to customers and their in-house committees.