Communication within a hospital is crucial to keeping patients alive and enhancing their recoveries. This is the precise reason nurse call systems were designed and installed in health facilities. Simply put, a nurse call system is a form of communication that allows a patient to contact the nurse station (and vice versa) with relative ease. Some are used by hospital staff for communication purposes as well.
The technology surrounding these systems has undergone changes since its inception decades ago. Now, the world boasts of some of the best nurse call systems Sydney complete with advanced features for effectiveness and safety.
What are the common features of a nurse call system?
1. Wall station
The wall station is where the speaker and microphone used for communication between the nurse and the patient are located. The code blue button that acts as a receptacle for the pillow speaker is also found on the wall station. In a few instances, you will also find IV pumps and ventilators connected to the wall station to help notify the nurse of any alerts.
2. Pillow speaker
This is what the patient uses to make contact with their nurse and control over bed lights and the TV as well. For patients with limited movement or complete paralysis, an alternative breathe call is often installed onto the wall station to help make communication possible. By inhaling or exhaling into a tube, the nurse would know the patient has indeed made contact.
3. Bed cable
A bed cable, as the name suggests, acts as the connection between the bed of the patients and the wall station. Once the bed alarm has been set, it gives the staff an opportunity to judge if a patient is leaving the bed when they shouldn’t. Additionally, it allows a patient to contact the nurse via a button located on the bed rail.
4. Code blue
Code blue is quite a common term especially in most medical dram TV shows. What it means is that a patients needs immediate help. If a staff presses code blue, multiple alerts go off everywhere the nurse call system has been installed and set up to alert.
5. Desk console
This looks somewhat like a telephone and allows the nurse or unit secretary to answer a call from the patient or make a call to the patient’s room whichever is necessary.
Different nurse call systems Sydney have different features and options but these are just the few common ones. With these features, a nurse system can be effective at making sure every patient is catered for as fast as possible.
