CHC gets new nurse call system worth $500K

The Commonwealth Health Center’s nurse call system—which was previously thumbed down by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services during a visit in 2014—has gotten a makeover.

“As one of the findings of CMS back in 2014, [the old nurse call system] was partially down,” said Esther Muña, Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer. “It is quite expensive, but [CHCC] decided that we needed it because one of the things we were worried about is what happens with the patients if they don’t have access to nurses.”

The new nurse call system costs CHCC about half-a-million dollars. It will help CHCC secure compliance with regulations.

Muña said the new nurse call system will add to the arsenal of CHCC staff in taking care of patients.

The $500,000 Westcom nurse call system is now installed all over the hospital except at the emergency room, where they are finishing installation. According to Warren Villagomez, CHCC director for Public Health and Hospital Emergency Preparedness Program, the emergency room is expected to be fully equipped by the end of this week.

Jesse Sablan, an IT specialist at CHC, explains that the Westcom call system is smarter, more efficient, and compact. It connects all rooms to a single network that could notify nurses and doctors if a situation arises. The new system also allows a patient to interact with a physician by phone.

The old nurse call system was large, clunky, and unreliable and was unable to identify the urgency of the patient’s call for assistance.

The new phone system also includes standard terminologies that make it easy for nurses to communicate with other nurses. For example, when a nurse announces code blue, that means the patient’s life may be in danger. Code blue is only announced when a patient’s heart has stopped beating, a patient stops breathing, or any other situation that requires immediate assistance to prevent the loss of life.

With the new nurse call system, patients need only to press one button to call for a nurse. Once a nurse has assessed the situation and believes that the patient may need assistance, the nurse may press the blue button for code blue, the green button for assistance, the red button for emergencies, or cancel the nurse call if the nurse handles the situation. An ambient light right outside the patient’s room would light up—making the room impossible to miss—should a situation arise. While the light goes on to alert others in the area, a computer would be announcing to people at the counter of the ward that a certain room has called for assistance. Should a blue light be displayed, the system automatically contacts the operator, which in turn announces a code blue situation for a team of specialists to rush into the room.

“You have the physical movement of the nurse, you have the monitor to capture evidence of the nurse actions, and you have somebody looking at it to determine whether we need to make a call to direct further patient services needed,” explained Villagomez.