Future Proofing Your Facility
It is important to leave a positive mark on the organisations we work for. Our personal and professional satisfaction often comes from being able to implement systems that positively affect the people who use them, whether they are patients or healthcare staff. 

In the past 5 years, IP systems have changed dramatically. In the past 10 years there have been considerable changes to PC’s. If we go back 15 years to a sample of hospitals, we would find a different story with many healthcare facilities still having the same Nurse call system in place today. The temptation is to say they would now be out-dated and there may be a modicum of truth in that a new platform or an upgrade to an existing platform is required. This would not give the full picture as the reason that many facilities still have their original nurse call system in place is because it works. It has worked all along and continues to perform which is why it is still there. If it didn’t it would have been replaced like many IP based systems.

The digital nurse call system has its place in the nurse call environment and will continue to do so as long as it continues to perform. Trends are a difficult thing to predict but there is evidence to show that the hybrid nurse call system may gain in popularity in the future. PBX (voice systems) went through a similar transition with the most successful adoption of IP being in the telephony environment through hybrid technologies. Here the core system has been based around traditional switched technologies at application level with enterprise applications using IP. In the Nurse call environment, a hybrid system combines the reliability of a digital nurse call system with the benefits of an IP system and may be the better option for your facility. Many organisations which have installed an IP system have gone to a hybrid system due to difficulties encountered and to achieve the reliability required for their facility.

Summary

• AS3811 is the current standard that applies today
• The nurse call system is the most used communications system in a hospital
• 99.999% reliability is the suggested minimum standard for the healthcare industry
• Hard wired, digital and hybrid nurse call systems can provide the required 99.999% reliability
• A stand-alone IP nurse call system has inherent risks
• IP based systems need to duplicate existing infrastructure to achieve the desired reliability which in turn reduces any cost benefit to the organisation. 
• The term IP means Internet Protocol and is considered unreliable
• Choose a nurse call vendor with service and supports networks in place to meet your organisational needs
• Consider the total life cost of a nurse call system when making your decision
• Functionality should always be considered alongside reliability and ongoing costs when making this important communications decision for your facility
• Many facilities still have their original hard wired and digital nurse call system in place because they work