Location: Coordinated Health, Allentown PA
Project: Nurse Call Network
A networked nurse call system in a brand new hospital building also provides mass notification and monitors stored critical supplies and medicines.
The Challenge: Coordinated Health planned construction of a surgical hospital in Allentown, PA and required a Nurse Call System. This system needed to be scalable to meet future growth as well as providing a call response time measurement application. Coordinated Health also required an efficient means of Code Blue notification throughout the entire hospital and an effective way of monitoring refrigeration equipment that stored critical supplies and medicines.
The CSI Solution: A networked nurse call system that connects all devices located throughout the three-story hospital. This facilitated the routing of patient calls, audio communications and other system functions throughout facility. The design of this network allowed the hospital to deliver facility-wide Code Blue annunciation. This network design permits collection of nurse call activity data from each nursing unit, allowing the hospital to evaluate response times and gauge performance. In addition, our solution coordinated alarm notification of critical temperature alarms from refrigeration equipment located throughout the hospital. This equipment is used to store temperature sensitive allografts, pharmaceuticals and specimens. Our design eliminated the need for an additional system and a central station monitoring service. This saved Coordinated Health money, reduced the risk of loss due to equipment malfunction and allowed for quicker intervention by on-site staff.
The Project: The installation of a Rauland Responder 4000 Network. This provided Coordinated Health with a single-system solution for an array of mission-critical needs. We placed Code Blue pushbutton stations in strategic locations throughout the facility and programmed for these emergency calls to be annunciated to the entire hospital; this provided hospital staff with a reliable notification of Code Blue alerts. We established master controls at nursing stations on each floor as well as in auxiliary work locations such as laboratory and utility areas, facilitating clear communication. Another feature provided by this system was the critical application of monitoring and reporting alarms for temperature fluctuations or other irregularities with the refrigeration units. Finally the system was complimented by additional features allowing for patient control of the TV and room light control, from a single pillow speaker (CSI also installed the Televisions and the TV distribution system). The project was completed in September 2009.
The Result: Coordinated Health’s Allentown location opened in the fall of 2009. This hospital has helped Coordinated Health maintain a prominent position regionally as a provider for Joint Replacement, Spine, Sports Medicine, Hand & Wrist, Foot & Ankle, Rheumatology and Plastic & Cosmetic surgery.
