How to Design an Effective NCS for Hospitals

Effective nurse call system design for hospitals and healthcare providers, encapsulates so many different factors. From the technology and softwares used in the systems themselves, to the bespoke features included, to how easily and effectively they can be installed within the hospital environment – there is so much that needs to be considered. At Courtney Thorne, all of our products follow all of these self-prescribed tenets of effective nurse call system design, and more. This blog article will explore the processes and philosophies that go into designing an effective nurse call system for hospitals, as well as how these systems benefit your patients and staff overall.

What are the different types of nurse call systems for hospitals?

In order to properly understand the fundamentals of good nurse call system design, we must first examine what the main component parts of this piece of healthcare technology are, as well as the different modes and types of nurse call system around. A nurse call system for hospitals can be broken down into several distinct categories based on the technology being used in its design, these being:

• Wired Nurse Call Systems: A wired nurse call system, as indicated by the name, is a system that utilises hard-wiring in its design, as opposed to wireless technology. This means that a wired nurse call system is integrated directly into the core mains and structure of your hospital, via a network of cables and wires.

• Wireless Nurse Call Systems: In direct contrast to wired nurse call systems, wireless nurse call systems for hospitals utilise various wireless technologies, such as BlueTooth and WiFi, in the installation. Wireless systems will be integrated into your healthcare facility via wireless bedside softwares, call points, and control panels. 

• Hybrid Nurse Call Systems: A hybrid nurse call system is one that incorporates different aspects of wired and wireless systems into one complete package. These nurse call systems for hospitals would utilise hard-wiring and wireless integrated technology to present a flexible and bespoke solution to your care planning and providing needs. 

What type of nurse call system for hospitals is best?

At Courtney Thorne, the vast majority of our nurse call systems for hospitals are wireless, with a couple of hard-wired features occasionally being utilised in hybrid solutions. We believe that wireless technology is the way forward for the industry of nurse call technology, for a few different reasons. For one, wireless technology is simply much better value for the organisation using it, requiring less in the way of installation costs, as well as being much quicker and less obtrusive to install. A wired system takes much longer to install, is more expensive to install, and is more likely to break down and need repairing overall, as it is connected to the mains system of your hospital.

A wireless nurse call system essentially has none of these issues, or at the very least a minimal chance of you running into them. For a closer look at the pros and cons of wired and wireless nurse call systems, you are welcome to read our blog covering this debate on wired vs wireless nurse call systems, and for more information on these different systems, you can also read our blog on the different types of nurse call systems.

What does a nurse call system for hospitals need to do?

A nurse call system for hospitals as a piece of healthcare technology, simply put, needs to make the care you provide to your patients higher-quality, better planned, and more structured, whilst also being an unobtrusive and intuitive addition to the admin of your staff. A well-designed nurse call system for hospitals needs to do all of the following in order to be a successful implementation:

• Be easy to use and accessible: A nurse call system for hospitals should always be designed to be as easy and intuitive to use as possible. The main principle behind nurse call systems is to facilitate care, and place the ability to get care when needed directly in the hands of the patient.

• Be reliable: With a nurse call system for hospitals, you are relying on a piece of healthcare technology to support and help your staff provide care to people in need. A nurse call system for hospitals needs to be relied upon to work and be accessible at all times, with minimal risk of failure.

• Be adaptable: Hospitals are environments that often change and adapt over time, so your nurse call system needs to be implicitly capable of evolving at the same pace as its environment. 

• Be effective: Simply put, a nurse call system for hospitals needs to be effective; it needs to utilise technology well and offer features that greatly improve the standard of care you are offering to your patients.

What are the features of an effective nurse call system for hospitals?

When designing an effective nurse call system for hospitals, the features and accessories included within it will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. At Courtney Thorne, all of our nurse call systems for hospitals make use of the following features and accessories:

• Call Buttons: Arguably the most important feature of a nurse call system, nurse call buttons in our products consist of a panel of easily-accessible buttons that allow your patients to call for assistance when needed. Call buttons are typically installed around the beds/wards of patients, as well as in bathrooms, and can even come in a pull cord style of activation if warranted.

• Call Lights: Nurse call lights in hospitals are most-commonly placed outside of wards, patient’s rooms, and in the corridors of your hospital, and are a quick and obvious method of alerting your nurses and staff to the emergency calls of patients.

• Touch Screens: All of Courtney Thorne’s nurse call systems for hospitals utilise touch screen technology. These screens can be used by your nurses to easily access real time reports, monitor patients from afar, and log all nurse call data for later analysis, and are placed at different points around the ward for ease of access.

• Assistive Technology: All of our nurse call systems for hospitals also make use of different assistive technologies, such as watch mats that are placed around the beds and furnishings of your patient’s bedside. These mats activate when triggered by the patient in the event of, for example, a fall – notifying nurses of these incidents quickly and without stress. 

• Pagers and Wearables: With our nurse call systems for hospitals, you will also gain access to watch wearables and pagers, as well as seamless smartphone integration. These wearable technologies allow your nurses portable access to call log data and potential calls from patients from anywhere in your hospital, from a pager or even from their own phones.

Our different designs of nurse call systems for hospitals

At Courtney Thorne, we fully stand by our entire catalogue of nurse call systems for hospitals, and believe them to be the industry standard product on the market. Our range of nurse call systems for hospitals includes our Altra Health and Connect Health systems.

Altra Health

The Altra Health Nurse Call System is a cutting-edge, bespoke solution designed to enhance patient care and support hospital staff. It integrates advanced nurse call technology with modern cloud reporting software, providing real-time data to decision-makers. This system aids in monitoring and improving patient safety through the use of reliable technology and seamless integration with smartphones, and is tailored expertly for the needs of hospitals. For more details on its features, you can download the Altra Health nurse call system brochure here.

Connect Health

The Connect Health nurse call system is a tailored solution for the healthcare sector, featuring a hybrid design of both wired and wireless components. Utilising dependable Category 1 Radio technology, it functions as a fully integrated nurse call system for hospitals that enhances support for your nurses and staff. For more details on its features, you can download the Connect Health nurse call system product brochure here.

Ultimately, when it comes to designing a nurse call system for hospitals, the process involves understanding the distinctions as to what a hospital and its staff need. An optimal nurse call system should be user-friendly, reliable, adaptable, and effective, enhancing the quality of patient care and supporting hospital staff. Essential features will often include accessible call buttons, alert lights, touch screens, assistive technologies, and wearables – all integrated with wireless technology to streamline operations and ensure patient safety. Courtney Thorne’s Altra Health and Connect Health systems exemplify these principles, providing cutting-edge, bespoke solutions to meet the dynamic demands of the healthcare sector.

If you have an interest in installing any of our different nurse call systems for hospitals in your healthcare institution, and would like to learn more about how this could be arranged, then you should get in touch with us over on our Contact page. By visiting our Support hub, you can also access several resources such as User Guides and FAQs, all of which explain our hospital systems and how they work in much greater detail than can be provided here.

Written by

Barry Vacher

Date

24.07.24