Texas is home to high-tech hospital prototype

Even a few minutes can mean the difference between life and death in a busy hospital.

“There are simple things hospitals can do today that are gonna help them see more patients and help them care for those patients more effectively,“ Wes Durow, Vice President of Nortel, said.

Better communication can help.

“What they do is pick this handset up which has a barcode in back, come to the kiosk here and actually check the phone out,“ Brian Taler, a senior manager at Nortel, said.

Now, hospitals can easily track doctors, nurses, and medical equipment.

“If a doctor needs to get a hold of this particular nurse, it’ll come to this phone,“ Taler said.

Nortel developed the high-tech system now being used at the company’s employee health clinic.

“All the physicians can know where the nurses are, all the nurses can know where the other nurses are in the hospital,“ Taler said.
Patients are given wristbands with bar codes.

“We’re allowing that patient to keep the same phone number throughout their stay at the hospital,“ Taler said. “So as far as family and friends want to get a hold of that patient, they don’t have to remember a new phone number every time they change from room to room.“

Hospital equipment is also tagged—and along with members of the medical staff, shows up onscreen.
“I can just click to call and I can contact that nurse or clinician over there and ask them to bring that I-V pump to me,“ Taler said.

“Bringing these technologies together, helping to get the right people to the right location at the right time is really what this is all about,“ Durow said.

The system can even shave hours off the process of sending someone home.

“We can actually cut that discharge down in half from an 8 hour process to a 4 hour process,“ Taler said.

“Shaving five minutes here and five minutes there, it does all add up. And what’s it add up to? It allows doctors to see more patients, it allows patients to see doctors more quickly and all of that is nothing but a real upside for everybody involved,“ Durow said.