Record Journal
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
By Jeffery Kurz, staff

MERIDEN - If you’re a Trekker, you already know how cool it is to talk to someone simply by tapping a button on your chest. That science-fiction scenario is about to become routine at MidState Medical Center.

Taking wing not from “Star Trek,” but via Silicon Valley, the communication device takes advantage of MidState’s new hospital -wide wi-fi access. Nurses and supporting staff in each of the hospital ’s four pavilions, the emergency department and birthing center - 388 employees - will use the hands-free equipment.

By tapping a button on a lightweight badge, a nurse joins a wireless world that enables connection, via voice recognition, immediately to any other individual or group on the network. So if help is needed moving a patient, for example, that message gets delivered without delay. It also means doctors can have instant access to the nurses and other staff taking care of their patients.

MidState is training staff to use the technology, from Vocera Communications, of Cupertino, Calif. The hospital expects to be using the equipment in the next couple of weeks, joining a handful of other hospitals in Connecticut.

“It’s part of our strategy of being a great place to work,” said Jeff Flaks, MidState’s vice president and chief operating officer. “We hope it’s going to help us be a more attentive employer.”

For several years, MidState had been looking to improve upon the less-than-coordinated system of beepers, cell phones, conference calls and intercom messages typical of most hospital operations.

“It was noisy, but also inefficient,” said Lee Galuska, director of women’s and inpatient medical services.
The Vocera system was tested as a pilot project on Pavilion D a couple of years ago.

Even technophobic nurses were enthusiastic about the results, said Jennifer Comerford, the hospital’s director of information services who is part of the MidState team that worked on the project.

“A lot of people don’t like change, so we piloted it,” said Eric J. Kamens, a hospital information systems consultant “Everybody was ecstatic.”

Sue Service, a registered nurse on Pavilion D, said she was “tickled pink” that she could push a button and be in contact with a physician. “We do a tremendous amount of phone work, all day long,” she said.

“The appliance itself is a groovy little thing,” Paula Palermo said of the device that weighs less than two ounces and includes a small screen for text messaging. “But the technology behind it can make everything much more efficient.”

Palermo, of Milford’s TPC Systems, a Vocera reseller, was at MidState Tuesday introducing employees to the system. Hospitals are particularly suited to take advantage of the sysly tem’s localized wireless capabilities, she said.

“It has a database running behind it,” she said. “So you can train it to recognize names.”

Alan Hofmann, director of enterprise networking services of Hartford Hospital, a Mid State affiliate, credited “Mid State’s vision” in taking advantage of the technology and said other hospitals will be watching to see how well it works.

“Patient satisfaction, I think that’s really MidState’s reputation,” he said.

The wireless network operates on a different frequency so it won’t interfere with medical equipment, said Hofmann. The network is also protected by encryption. Training includes the special handling of privacy issues. Nurses, for example, can use headphones when receiving more sensitive information. MidState has invested rough- $250,000 into the system and postponed a few other initiatives, like new carpeting, to help pay for it, said Flaks.

Despite its space-age luster, the new approach is not perfect. Voice recognition does not recognize cordiality, so saying “please” gets you nowhere, as in no response. The automated voice, or “genie,” also doesn’t like being interrupted.

As with most software applications, developers couldn’t resist incorporating a few Easter eggs, or bits of hidden frivolity, into the system.

So saying “beam me up” is rewarded with a transporting sound effect. Just like “Star Trek.