Alerts from point-of-care systems must be delivered to the people best qualified to respond via the communication devices they actually use. So driving situational awareness to as many screens as possible is key – from workstations (desktops and laptops), to tablets and digital signage, including TVs, to smartphones and pagers. Such mass notification enables mobility as well as redundancy to greatly enhance life safety.
With a common alerting platform, triggering events can be harnessed to drive awareness transactions, alerts with specific details about an unfolding situation, to clinicians’ mobile devices. Centralized, automated alerting like this helps clinicians quickly assess, prioritize and respond to alarms to improve workflow and the delivery of patient care. An alert indicating a patient with an elevated blood pressure along with the patient’s room number can be prioritized over a patient requesting ice chips.
And with point-of-care alerts delivered to clinicians on their mobile devices, they won’t be tied to a nurses’ station or panel waiting for an alarm, nor will they have to manage multiple alerting devices. Updating staff assignments on whiteboards during shift changes also can be eliminated with an intelligent platform for assigning point-of-care alerts to mobile devices.
Also, wouldn’t it be better to broadcast emergency codes directly to clinicians via their mobile devices rather than use the PA system or radio network? Hospitals are stressful environments, at least certain areas, so reducing the use of or eliminating overhead paging all together would promote a more peaceful and healing environment and avoid unnecessary commotion and/or panic among patients.
