Vocera Communications, Inc., a recognized leader in clinical communication and workflow, announced that McLaren Northern Michigan has deployed Vocera solutions to connect care teams across the hospital, including its new 182,000-square-foot Offield Family Pavilion. The new hospital wing, which features 104 private inpatient rooms in a new intensive care unit (ICU), cardiovascular unit, and surgical unit, boasts many technologies and innovative services, many of which were funded by local donations to enhance the patient and staff experience.
“We are fortunate to have a caring and supportive community that enabled us to implement essential solutions and build a modern facility to match our world-class care”
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“We are fortunate to have a caring and supportive community that enabled us to implement essential solutions and build a modern facility to match our world-class care,” said Jennifer Woods, MSN, RN, CENP, Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Patient Care Services at McLaren Northern Michigan. “Our clinicians and staff deserve the best tools and technologies.”
Focusing on the safety and well-being of their staff and community, a multi-disciplinary team of leaders at McLaren Northern Michigan partnered to ensure the right infrastructure was in place to build an ideal working and healing environment. A critical foundation of the project, called “Building the Future of Health Care,” focused on creating an intelligent ecosystem of connectivity and transparency. McLaren Health Care System chose Vocera solutions to standardize care team collaboration and communication at every point of care.
At McLaren Northern Michigan nurses, physicians and other care team members throughout the hospital are equipped with the Vocera Vina smartphone application and the wearable, voice-controlled Vocera Smartbadge to quickly communicate and collaborate. The intuitive Vocera Smartbadge and Vina app enable healthcare workers to connect quickly with the right person or group using simple voice commands like “call 201 nurse,” “call ICU pharmacist” or “call trauma team.” The mobile solutions also enable team members to send and receive secure messages and easily manage alert and alarm notifications. The Vocera Engage intelligent workflow engine prioritizes and routes notifications with actionable information to the right clinician on their device of choice, including the Spectralink Versity smartphone running the Vina app.
Care team members can also reach safety and security personnel instantly with the dedicated panic buttons on the Vocera Smartbadge and Spectralink Versity. Additionally, McLaren Northern Michigan is actively working to integrate the Vocera solutions with the hospital’s real time location system (RTLS), nurse call, physiologic monitors, digital whiteboards, electronic health record (EHR) system, and smart beds to simplify workflows, reduce interruptions, mitigate cognitive overload, and speed up response times.
“Vocera provides an excellent platform for safe and efficient clinical communication and advanced integrated workflows,” Shari Schult, MSN, RN, Vice President of Operations at McLaren Northern Michigan said. “We are very proud of the hospital we built and the many technologically advanced solutions we implemented to best serve our patients today and into the future.”
About McLaren Northern Michigan
McLaren Northern Michigan is a 202-bed regional hospital located in Petoskey, Michigan serving residents in 22 counties across northern Michigan and the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula. More than 230 physicians represent nearly all medical and surgical specialties, enabling full-service care with an emphasis on cardiology, cancer, orthopedics, and neurosciences. McLaren Northern Michigan has a network of primary care providers and specialty care clinics throughout the region, and an outpatient surgery center in Cheboygan. It has achieved Magnet® status for nursing excellence, been named a Top 50 heart hospital and Top 100 Hospital in the U.S. by IBM/Watson Health, and received the highest national ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for quality and safety.
About Vocera
The mission of Vocera Communications, Inc. is to improve the lives of healthcare professionals, patients, and families. Founded in 2000, Vocera provides solutions that help protect and connect team members, simplify workflows, increase efficiency, enhance quality of care and safety, and humanize the healthcare experience. More than 2,300 facilities worldwide, including nearly 1,900 hospitals and healthcare facilities, have selected Vocera solutions to enable their workforce to communicate and collaborate with co-workers and engage with patients and families. Mobile workers can choose the right device for their role or task, including smartphones or one of the company’s wearable communication devices, and use voice commands to easily reach people by name, role, or group. The hands-free Vocera Smartbadge was named to TIME’s list of the 100 Best Inventions of 2020. Vocera solutions can integrate with more than 150 clinical and operational systems, including electronic health records, nurse call systems, ventilators, physiological monitors, and more. In addition to healthcare, Vocera solutions are found in aged care facilities, veterinary hospitals, schools, luxury hotels, retail stores, power facilities, and more.
