Vocera: Enhancing Patient Care through Clinical Communication

Brent D. Lang, President & CEO

On a summer afternoon, George, 75, was suddenly struck by a severe heart-attack. No sooner had the ambulance arrived at his home than the emergency code was conveyed to all the respective departments of the hospital, dealing with intensive trauma care. Moreover, George’s past medical history of coronary artery disease and being diaphoretic was transmitted so the right treatment procedures could be arranged before he arrived. This fast, mobile communication is what Vocera brings to the fore when time matters most. “In an unexpected event, such as a heart-attack, every second becomes critical. In healthcare, lapses in communication are the third leading cause of death in the United States. That’s where Vocera steps in,” states Rhonda Collins, Chief Nursing Officer, Vocera. Connecting individual units of a clinical workflow— from catheterization lab to cardiology, radiology, and attending physicians—by a multi-functional Vocera Communication Badge, largely diminishes communication hassles that can lead to critical information falling into cracks.

California-based Vocera’s portfolio of solutions has evolved from the hands-free Vocera Communication Badge, to a robust enterprise communication and collaboration software platform. “Vocera is about breaking down silos, bridging communication gaps, and restoring human connections in patient care delivery,” explains Brent D. Lang, President and CEO of Vocera. The Vocera Platform enables care team members to communicate via wearable, voice-controlled badges, smartphone, or web console.

The intelligent software not only simplifies intra-team communication, but also enables team members to effortlessly connect with co-workers by saying or selecting their role, group, assignment, or name. The staff assignment system is also enriched with data and team information from the EHR, used for real-time routing of critical alerts, alarms, statistical results, and other urgent communications.

Vocera also offers mobile technology to help hospitals manage, monitor, and improve patient experience. The industry’s shift from volume to value-based care has created the need for newer standards that drive higher patient satisfaction and loyalty. Yet, results from the HCAHPS survey that assesses a patient’s perspective on hospital care are not instantaneously available. Vocera helps hospitals proactively address the need to capture patient feedback with Vocera Rounds—a mobile application that standardizes the rounding process and improves workflow efficiency, staff response times, and patient satisfaction. Alongside capturing patient comments, requests, concerns, and compliments at the bedside, Vocera Rounds allows documentation, escalation, and analytics that make the rounding practice more relevant and influential. Vocera also offers a customizable alarm management solution that enables hospitals to create a data-driven strategy to improve care team efficiency and patient safety. Based on intelligent workflow and escalation rules defined in the system, the Vocera software can automatically send alerts to the appropriate care team members on their device of choice.

In addition to transforming the way the healthcare workforce connects, communicates, and collaborates, implementation of Vocera technology has demonstrated improvements in patient experience. An instance that serves as a testimony of this is Genesis HealthCare System in Ohio, which encountered a significant improvement in patient satisfaction and a 35 percent increase in the hospital’s overall HCAHPS rating after deploying the Vocera Rounds solution. Likewise, in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Sentara Princess Anne Hospital, Virginia, integration between the hospital’s real-time location system and Vocera’s alarm management solution helped reduce alarm interruptions by 54 percent.

Built around a mission to improve lives of patients, families, and healthcare professionals, Vocera strives to unwind complex clinical processes, curb administrative bureaucracies, and minimize disparate systems. Working towards this vision since its inception, Vocera has grown from a small start-up into a publically-traded, international firm employing over 500 hundred employees in 10 countries with more than 1,400 healthcare facilities selecting Vocera solutions for their care teams.