Upstate University Hospital Reimagines Physician-Patient Experience with Vocera Solution

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA), a recognized leader in clinical communication and workflow solutions, today announced that physicians at Upstate University Hospital in New York identified a unique way to improve communication and patient experience using real-time feedback captured with the Vocera Rounds solution.

“Solid communication and trust between physicians and patients enhances the patient experience, increases medication compliance, reduces readmission rates and improves clinical outcomes,” said Amit Dhamoon, MD, PhD, internist at Upstate University Hospital and associate professor of medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University. “The Vocera Rounds solution is helping our residents and attending physicians have meaningful conversations with patients and their families, which helps improve engagement, education and understanding.”

Focused on improving physician communication and patient experience, Dr. Dhamoon and team use the Vocera Rounds solution to collect data about hospitalists’ behaviors during patient interactions and provide real-time feedback. The digital assessment is customized using Vocera Rounds, a mobile application that enables clinicians to customize patient-centric questions, easily capture answers and observations, and track trends per clinician and department.

Clinicians and quality leaders at Upstate University Hospital worked closely with the care experience team at Vocera to design questions that address core communication tenets for physicians to follow. During a hospitalist-patient interaction, a medical resident observes the physician’s behaviors and captures observations in the app using an iPad. Residents and physicians also use the app to conduct a brief patient survey after the encounter.

“The power of this professional teaching program is the combination of immediate feedback from patients and colleagues,” said Dr. Dhamoon, who is studying the effectiveness of this training approach and its impact on patient satisfaction measured by Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys.

SUNY Upstate Medical University

SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, is the only academic medical center in Central New York and is the region's largest employer with more than 10,000 employees. Affiliated with the State University of New York, Upstate's mission is to improve the health of the community through education, biomedical research and health care. Upstate's educational mission is anchored by its four colleges—Medicine, Nursing, Health Professions and Graduate Studies. As a biomedical research enterprise, Upstate focuses on the most prevalent human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, nervous system disorders, vision, and infectious diseases. The Upstate University Health System serves 1.8 million people, often the most seriously ill and injured, and includes Upstate University Hospital, Upstate University Hospital at Community Campus, Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital, and numerous satellite sites. Stretching north to Canada and south to the Pennsylvania, Upstate's sphere of influence can be felt across a wide swath of New York. Education programs in various locations across the state help train medical professionals in their home communities. Physicians use telemedicine to cover medical specialist shortages in rural communities. Upstate New York Poison Center, from its hub in Syracuse, provides poison information and support for millions of New Yorkers.

About Vocera

The mission of Vocera Communications, Inc. is to simplify and improve the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, while enabling hospitals to enhance quality of care and operational efficiency. In 2000, when the company was founded, we began to forever change the way care teams communicate. Today, Vocera continues to offer the leading platform for clinical communication and workflow. More than 1,700 facilities worldwide, including nearly 1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities, have selected our solutions for team members to text securely using smartphones or make calls with our hands-free, wearable Vocera Badge. Interoperability between Vocera and more than 150 clinical and operational systems helps reduce alarm fatigue, speed up staff response times, and improve patient care, safety and experience. In addition to healthcare, Vocera is at home in luxury hotels, aged care facilities, nuclear facilities, libraries, retail stores and more. Vocera makes a difference in any industry where workers are on the move and need to connect instantly with team members and access resources or information quickly. In 2017, Vocera made the list of Forbes 100 Most Trustworthy Companies in America. Learn more at www.vocera.com, and follow @VoceraComm on Twitter.

Vocera ^®  and the Vocera logo are trademarks of Vocera Communications, Inc. registered in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other trademarks appearing in this release are the property of their respective owners.

SUNY Upstate Medical University
Kathleen Paice Froio
paicek@upstate.edu
or
Vocera Communications, Inc.
Shanna Hearon, 669-999-3368
shearon@vocera.com