Partner Press Releases

Trail-Blazing Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust Gets Innovative Communications Service from BT

Cornwall, UK (Feb. 21, 2006) — The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust in Truro is introducing an innovative system that allows its staff to contact each other instantly anywhere in the hospital through a voice activated, wearable badge.

The hands-free device operates on a BT wireless LAN, weighs less than two ounces and enables users to speak to each other instantly. By simply saying a person’s name or department, users are automatically connected with the appropriate person and can speak to them just like on a normal telephone.

Called the BT Managed Vocera® Solution, the system is expected to improve productivity by offering significant time and cost savings over alternative methods of communications with its ability to locate and contact key personnel immediately.

Successfully implemented at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust earlier this year, this is the first hospital in the UK with a system of its kind.

The new system is ideal for a hospital environment where key staff need to be contacted urgently and are often away from a desk phone.

BT Managed Vocera offers many advantages over technologies such as paging, walkie-talkies, and mobile phones. Paging has the disadvantage that it can be slow and disruptive, two-way walkie-talkies can compromise security while communicating with a mobile phone is often prohibited in hospitals because of the potential of interference with critical equipment.

Using this system, staff no longer have to remember phone numbers or stop what they are doing as they make or receive a call. BT Managed Vocera can broadcast to a number of people, such as a team of specialists, to form a rapid response unit. It can also find staff by function and location giving people the ability to call the nearest nurse, for example.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is linking the system to its existing workflow management system using the text to voice capability to send porters details of their next job wherever they are in the hospital.

The system is based on a BT wireless local area network and uses mobile Voice over Internet Protocol technology to convert voice into IP packets which can be transmitted over the network and reassembled into voice at the receiving device.

With more than 500 wireless access points, the BT secure wireless LAN at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is one of the largest in the UK. It covers the entire hospital and will enable both voice and data applications such as electronic patient records, cardiac monitoring and telemetry to pass over the wireless infrastructure.

Steve Wells, sales director, BT Health, said: “The BT Managed Vocera Solution shows how the use of new or existing wireless LANs can be easily extended to offer a voice service which can be a real boon to productivity for hospital personnel. The system overcomes many of the deficiencies of alternative technologies in this highly specialised field and we are delighted to be working with the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust which is trail-blazing this technology in the UK healthcare market.”

Simon Goodwin, director of IT for the Cornwall NHS Community, said: “Instant secure and reliable communications is vital in a hospital setting. The new system is simple to use and will allow us to respond more quickly to our patients’ need. Not only that but it allows us to increase productivity while at the same time extending the use of our wireless LAN.”

Last year BT was awarded a similar contract to provide both a wireless network and the BT Managed Vocera Solution at the Regions Hospital, Arden Hills, Minnesota in the US.

Further information
For further information please call Barry Murphy at BT on 01252 777243.

Inquiries may also be made to the BT Group Newsroom on its 24-hour number: 020 7356 5369. From outside the UK dial + 44 20 7356 5369. All news releases can be accessed at our web site: http://www.bt.com/newscentre

About BT
BT is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in more than 160 Countries. Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.

In the year ended 31 March 2005, BT Group’s revenue was £18,623 million with profit before taxation of £2,354 million.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.

For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt

About the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust
The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust is the main provider of acute hospital services in Cornwall, serving a population of approximately 400,000 residents and more than double this number during the busy holiday periods. It manages three hospitals in Truro, Penzance and Hayle. The largest is the Royal Cornwall Hospital, which has 870 beds spread across a 20-hectare site. In total the hospitals have well over half a million patient contacts each year.

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust’s press office can be contacted on 01872 252934.

About Vocera Communications
Vocera Communications provides wireless communications systems enabling instant voice communication among mobile workers to leading institutions and companies requiring enhanced customer service, productivity, and teamwork. The company, with sales offices in the United Kingdom and Australia, serves its global customer base from its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. For more information, please contact the company at 408-882-5100, or visit the Web site at www.vocera.com.

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