Partner Press Releases

PHOENIX CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL SELECTS EMERGIN'S ALARM MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE PATIENT SAFETY

PHOENIX (April 16, 2007) — Phoenix Children’s Hospital (PCH), one of the nation’s ten largest children’s hospitals, recently selected Emergin, the leader in alarm management solutions for healthcare. PCH will deploy Emergin’s Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) as part of a year-long expansion project at their Newborn Intensive Care Unit on the campus of Banner Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. The goal of implementing the integration platform is to achieve improvements in clinical workflow, error reduction and patient satisfaction.

“Our goal is to improve the experiences of both our patients and their families,” said Bob Sarnecki, chief information officer for Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “Using Emergin’s alarm management system, the hospital plans to streamline communications and enhance the patient care experience.”

In the expanded Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU), clinicians will use hands-free Vocera VoIP badges as the primary mode of communication. Emergin’s ESB will route alarm messages from multiple systems to the wearable voice badges. In phase one, these systems will include the Rauland Borg Responder IV Nurse Call System and Philips Patient Monitoring System. The Emergin ESB will also interface to Eclipsys’ ADT (Admit, Discharge & Transfer), which will provide automated access to detailed patient demographic information. In a future phase, Emergin will provide an Adapter to integrate with Zettler’s Sentinel 500 Nurse Call System. The benefit of the ESB is that the hospital can minimize work process disruptions and incrementally add best-in-class systems based on current and future resources, timelines and project needs.

“We consider PCH a great example of how our technology can be applied to make a significant, measurable improvement in hospital operations,” said Sherry Henricks, vice president of sales, Emergin. “Our solution will help support a quieter, more healing environment for patients, while driving inter-departmental collaboration for employees.”

PCH maintains a “Palpable Silence” policy, a qualitative sound standard and level of acceptability at any given time. The new NICU will grow to quadruple its current size, with the majority of rooms becoming private. The hospital’s expansion plan includes significant additions to staff as well as major facility upgrades. The caregiver-to-patient assignments will be updated when shifts change for on-duty and off-duty personnel through the Emergin Orchestrator Client. By centralizing the clinical assignments and notification process in one application, the information can be digitally available anywhere throughout the hospital. In a dynamic critical care environment, employees can gain immediate access to caregiver assignments and automate care processes for better outcomes.

In 2006, the hospital rolled out Emergin’s communication adapter for hospital-wide communications, which PCH employees have nicknamed “OnCall” after GM’s “OnStar” in-vehicle security system. The system allows staff members to notify specific groups or individuals via alphanumeric pager. It also monitors out-of-tolerance conditions such as network alerts or temperature fluctuations in the hospital servers or the chilled water system. For example, if the temperature in the Data Center rises above 74 degrees, an alert is automatically sent to the I.T. team.

The hospital has already experienced a decrease in communication delays (from seven minutes down to 30 seconds) by deploying the Emergin system. The current database will eventually be migrated to the ESB. Potential integrations that will be explored after the first two phases include Lab and Pharmacy System integrations as well as Location-Based Services.

About Phoenix Children’s Hospital
Phoenix Children’s Hospital is the only free-standing pediatric hospital in Arizona and one of the ten largest hospitals of its
kind in the United States. The main facility (Thomas campus) consists of a five-story, 265,000 square foot pediatric
hospital, including an emergency department, one medical building, one outpatient clinic, and two other service buildings.
Phoenix Children’s Newborn Intensive Care Units are located both at the hospital and on the campus of Banner Good
Samaritan Regional Medical Center, making it one of the largest newborn intensive care units in the country. Phoenix
Children’s Hospital contains 299 beds between its several locations, including 137 intensive care beds.

About Emergin
Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, Emergin (a derivative of ‘emergency’ and ‘innovation ’) is the leading provider of
alarm management solutions for the healthcare enterprise. Emergin has helped more than 5,000 enterprise organizations
improve real-time communications, safety and quality. In healthcare, Emergin has provided messaging and connectivity
solutions to more than 1,000 organizations, including five Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award recipients, 30% of the nation’s
Magnet Hospitals, 50% of the Leapfrog Top-50 hospitals, and six of the Top-10 Heart Hospitals.

Contacts:
Kathy McCall
Emergin Inc.
561-886-3113
kathy.mccall@emergin.com

Jane Walton
Phoenix Children’s Hospital – Communications Dept.
602-546-5871
jwalton@phoenixchildrens.com

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