INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
Canberra Hospital enhances patient safety with smart medical devices and messaging solution
Open standards solution easily integrated and interconnected across locations within the hospital ’ s existing infrastructure .
IQ Messenger Smart app provides paging across the hospital .
Canberra Hospital provides general and tertiary acute public healthcare to the ACT and surrounding NSW region in Australia . Canberra Hospital is the largest public hospital in the area providing care to more than 500,000 people through a range of services including acute inpatient and day services , outpatient services , women ’ s and children ’ s services , paediatrics and pathology .
ACT Health works with Spectralink smart medical devices , which are medical device certified and fit within the clinical stack around the delivery of critical alarms .
The ALE solution needed to provide messaging and duress alarms as well as location-based services , triggered by the alarm button on the Spectralink device .
“ Since we ’ ve moved to Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and some of the solutions they ’ re providing for us such as messaging and duress , we ’ ve really seen it refine and get much easier , so clinicians now simply have one device to go to that can do everything they need ,” said Peter O ’ Halloran , Chief Information Officer , ACT Health .
Technical benefits
• Integration between Spectralink smart medical devices ( using an alarm button ) and Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar IoT Bluetooth Gateways and IQ Messenger enable alarm messaging enriched with location information
The Adult Mental Health Unit ( AMHU ) is focused on providing a safe and supportive environment for patients with acute mental illness or disorder .
Efficient messaging is critical to provide safe care for patients . Incidents that occur across the clinical space need to be responded to quickly .
At ACT Health , smart devices were only operating as phones and there was no emergency duress alarm that provided accurate geographic location . That meant juggling multiple devices when it was time to respond to a call . ACT Health required an open standards solution that could be easily integrated and interconnected across locations within the existing infrastructure .
Location-based services are fundamental to responding to incidents quickly . Together with ALE messaging software , mission-critical messages are sent with unique audio and unique tones , so staff know if it ’ s an alarm code they need to respond to even before they take the device out of their pocket .
Additionally , the command center sees when the call has been acknowledged and if someone is responding . Introduction of the Spectralink device also means staff only require one device . After a successful proof of concept ( POC ), the solution was adopted for duress situations at Mental Health Ward 12B .
IQ Messenger is the engine for innovative use cases extending staff safety with Duress / Lone Worker functions – and the
Financial benefits
• Location services lead to cost and time savings otherwise spent looking for staff , patients or equipment
• A single smart medical device results in reduced PPE and ICT costs
• Equipment durability means devices aren ’ t being replaced if they are accidently dropped or fall into water
User experience benefits
• Safe and organized workspace . The new technologies support improved facility and organizational workflows
• Better staff support and better patient care
• Improved staff communications and collaboration and a safe environment p
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