Mobile clinical communications saves Valley Medical Center tens of millions of dollars

The operating room unit includes 18 surgery rooms on two floors, and delays in any activities necessary to expedite pre-op preparation, the speed of the procedure and post-op care – for example, room set-up, instrument sterile processing or transport help – are expensive.

Until 2015, the clinicians, nurses and support staff who had to coordinate these activities communicated with each other using a complex mix of pagers, legacy phones and whiteboards. In this environment, it was difficult to even track the location of valuable operating room equipment.

“We needed a faster, easier way for everyone to connect with each other and share patient and workflow information,” said Jeremy Wyatt, manager of perioperative services and manager of sterile processing at the UW Medicine Valley Medical Center. “In 2015, we consolidated operating room perioperative communications and alarm/alert notifications on the HIPAA-compliant Voalte smartphone system.”

This was part of a hospital-wide rollout of Voalte communications technology with goals aligned with the medical center’s four “Patients Are First” strategic pillars – provide the highest quality care, improve patient experiences, lower costs, and become an employer of choice by improving clinician and staff experiences.

The full Healthcare IT News article can be viewed at this link.