Improve resident care through a greater responsiveness to their needs and enable staff to be more productive with a centralised communications system from IBM

The Challenge

Samarinda Lodge is a not-for-profit residential aged-care facility in Australia. With only one caregiver per six residents, the facility needs its staff members to be able to communicate effectively with residents and with one another to ensure that each resident receives the highest quality care. However, the facility's existing communication system-cumbersome walkie-talkies sometimes combined with pagers and cell phones-did not allow residents to contact all staff members or allow staff members to contact one another quickly and easily. Samarinda Lodge needed a more effective communication solution to help improve its responsiveness to resident needs.

The Solution

Samarinda Lodge improved communication between staff and residents by working with IBM to implement a hands-free, voice-based communication solution. Based on communication badges from Vocera, the new solution enables staff members to easily call any resident's room, any other staff member or the front desk from any location, while continuing to attend to the task at hand. In addition, residents can use the phones in their rooms to call any staff member.

The Benefits

• Improved care of residents through greater responsiveness to their needs
• Helps reduces labor costs and helps to attract and retain staff
• Won several awards for innovation in healthcare