Secure Messaging from a Smartphone to Any Other Device at Your Hospital

It’s an exciting time for Amcom because we’ve just announced the latest release of our Amcom Mobile Connect (AMC) product, which offers some amazing new capabilities for hospitals. The most notable enhancement is that a user can communicate with other individuals or groups via encrypted, traceable messages—right from their smartphone or tablet running AMC. Amcom Mobile Connect runs on Apple®, BlackBerry®, and Android® smartphones and tablets, as well as Cisco® tablets and wireless IP phones.

With full authenticated directory access, clinicians or others can send messages to staff running Amcom Mobile Connect on smartphones/tablets, as well as colleagues using pagers, wireless telephones, and other types of devices. As in previous versions of the product, staff can also send messages from Amcom operator consoles, Web directories, emergency notification, and other solutions.

We’re also keeping security top of mind. Amcom Mobile Connect uses industry standard best practices to ensure the protection of sensitive electronic health information in accordance with guidelines from HIPAA and the HITECH Act. This includes a variety of security features, including encryption, application lock, automated message removal, and password-protected inbox. With version 3.0 administrators can complete a remote device wipe to remove Amcom Mobile Connect messages from a smartphone that has been lost or stolen.

These capabilities contrast sharply with the limitations of text (SMS) messaging, which lacks the message traceability and encryption that could lead to a security breach. In fact, the Joint Commission stated on Nov. 10, “No it is not acceptable for physicians or licensed independent practitioners to text orders for patients to the hospital or other healthcare setting. This method provides no ability to verify the identity of the person sending the text and there is no way to keep the original message as validation of what is entered into the medical record.”

You can learn more about Amcom Mobile Connect on our Web site.

As always, your comments are welcome!

The Missing HL7 Link and Smartphones

HL7—Health Level 7—is the standard format for exchanging patient health information between medical applications (created by the not-for-profit organization of the same name). HL7 is a language healthcare organizations understand very well, and they need communications systems that speak it too. Fluently.

But what can we do with it? Amcom Software’s HL7 Link provides automatic notification of critical information like lab results, alarms, and/or patient status. Alerts can include patient information such as name, medical record number, room number, etc. Staff automatically receive the information they need on the correct device.

The effective use of HL7 data to improve care is a potential area of improvement for hospitals. In fact, the Joint Commission has established a National Patient Safety Goal which specifies the need to send important test results to the appropriate staff member on time. It is also very important for hospitals to be able to evaluate the timeliness of these notifications. Amcom Software can help organizations meet this goal by using HL7 data across several systems in novel ways to improve patient care.

Let’s look at an example:

A patient undergoes testing and her lab results are abnormal. The patient’s physician needs to be notified ASAP. The lab technician enters the results into the lab system. Through HL7 integration, once the lab result is entered, it is automatically passed to the Amcom system. Amcom can send the results to the physician on his smartphone. This is done securely and includes an audit trail. With the lab results in hand, the physician determines the patient needs additional medication. He sends a message about the medication and dosage from his smartphone (again, securely and with an audit trail) to the nurse responsible for the patient’s room on her smartphone. The patient receives the medication quickly.

There are many benefits of this for different groups in this scenario. Doctors get proactive notification of critical lab results, meaning they can treat patients with the right procedures or medicine faster. Lab technicians eliminate the time spent manually calling or locating the right physician. The responsibility of reaching the physician is taken off the lab technician, allowing him or her to return to work faster as well.

There are many additional scenarios where this flow of information among systems and people provides great benefit, such as the admit/discharge process and related downstream events, notification about blood products being ready, the availability of particular reports being available, and more.

Hospitals seek every possible opportunity to improve how information flows for the good of patient care and staff efficiency. A link between critical systems and staff goes a long way toward this.

How are you using HL7 in your organization?

Communications Technology Within Reach

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of smaller hospitals looking at the options for communications technology because they want to better coordinate care for their patients. It’s no secret that better communications, particularly during critical situations, are essential to improved care and safety. In fact, the Joint Commission continually finds in its annual studies that poor communication is the leading cause of sentinel events. But smaller hospitals have historically had challenges finding technology that fits their bed size.

The good news is that rock-solid healthcare communications technology is very much within reach for smaller hospitals today. This not only includes solutions for automating even small call center operations, but also goes far beyond into delivering important communications from staff or even monitoring systems to nurses and doctors who are always on the move.

Here’s a sampling. Embracing Web-based on-call scheduling and employee directories means everyone can access the latest contact information easily. Sending nurse call and patient monitoring system alerts straight to nurses’ mobile devices means less walk time and faster response. Delivering urgent code call or other notifications to clinicians’ smartphones and tablets (or any other device) means greater efficiency in providing informed patient care.

Think of a case like a heart attack patient or car crash victim coming into a rural or community hospital. Making sure the right staff members are contacted quickly is vital, especially when things happen in the middle of the night and staff are home, perhaps some distance from the hospital. Having an up-to-the-minute on-call calendar, the right contact information, and the ability to message quickly to doctors and nurses (likely on smartphones) all plays a role in providing good care.

As always, I’d love to hear your comments.

Connect 11 User Conference: Should We Have Named It Mobility 11?

Last week Amcom held its national user conference in Chicago, Connect 11. We had hundreds of attendees spanning customers, partners, and employees. The most amazing part was that we all had a common goal in getting together: to discuss how today’s organizations can better use technology to improve communications—often when lives are on the line and seconds really do count.

Mobility was such a powerful theme during the event that we could have renamed it Mobility 11. Sessions were buzzing. Some hospitals talked about their approaches to get clinical information from machines that go beep straight to caregivers’ mobile devices. Others showed how they have shaved precious minutes off door-to-balloon times by getting specific messages to a host of people who need to come quickly and help. And there were plenty of hospitals excited about their new way of sending critical messages to smartphones—reliably, securely, quickly and with high accountability.

We learned a lot from our customers. Not only about how they do things today, but also how they’d like to do them in the future. We also hope our customers learned a bit about how Amcom views the changes going on right now in communications technology and how we’re planning to help customers with their initiatives in mobile communications, helping people connect more easily, and simplifying daily tasks.

We got a lot of feedback that the content on smartphone and tablet messaging was very timely. Many of our users were also excited to learn about a solution we’ll be launching in the next few months…more on that soon!

Thanks to all of the customers and partners who attended Connect 11. We look forward to continuing the great conversations we got started in the Windy City.

Amcom and Cisco in Healthcare

Amcom continues to focus on enabling messages to be sent to an ever-broader array of devices to support the diversity of communications tools different staff members use in today’s hospitals. In fact, our Amcom Mobile Connect smartphone/tablet messaging solution now enables hospitals to send staff encrypted critical communications on Cisco wireless IP phones and Cius tablets. Read more.

In addition to our support for Cisco devices, Amcom has been a member of the Cisco Developer Community since 2003. This means we maintain certifications on a number of products which integrate with Cisco Unified Communications applications and devices. We’re pleased to announce that the latest versions of our operator console applications have successfully completed interoperability testing with Cisco UCCX 8.5, UCM 8.5, and UCCE 8.5. For customers who have Cisco phone systems or plan to migrate to them, this means they’ll have a proven technology backbone supporting their mission-critical communications. Read more.

Curious to hear more about Amcom and Cisco in healthcare? Drop us a note below!

Survey Says!

Given how quickly mobile device adoption and preferences are changing, we’re keenly interested to see the trends taking shape in hospitals regarding usage. I blogged several months ago about the October 2010 survey we conducted on this topic. Last month, we ran a similar survey of more than 600 healthcare organizations about their use of smartphones and tablets in critical communications. Survey participants were from hospitals of all sizes across North America and included clinical leadership, IT, telecommunications, and call center management titles.

We wanted to better understand how mobile devices are making an impact in critical healthcare communications, and how organizations are addressing some of the following challenges:

• Determining which personnel will use smartphones and tablets


• Determining which types of smartphones and tablets to support while continuing to use many other types of communication devices such as pagers


• Determining who should pay for the devices and data plans


• Determining how to insert these devices in the mix of critical communications


• Ensuring messages are sent securely and meet HIPAA requirements

While some of the findings were what we expected (iPad is the preferred tablet!), other responses were surprising, such as hospitals using SMS/email to send sensitive messages, which leads to questions about lack of security and HIPAA concerns.

Interested in finding more about what respondents said about smartphone and tablet usage in their hospitals? You can download the report here.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Emory University: Making Meaningful Connections Through Technology

We are excited to share with you a new video we created with an exceptional customer, Emory University Hospitals.

Over the years, Emory University Hospitals has become a true leader with its approach to technology, staff communications, and patient care. Emory has worked with Amcom Software to create a unified communications platform which includes:

• Sending critical messages to staff on smartphones


• Notifying all necessary staff simultaneously to speed treatment for heart attack patients (notable reduction in average door-to-balloon time)


• Running an efficient, consolidated contact center that provides top-notch service for 6,000 to 8,000 calls/day


• Managing organization-wide on-call scheduling online

Watch now to learn more about Emory's approach to technology and staff communications. We're thrilled about the success this long-time customer has achieved using its Amcom solutions and hope you find this video inspiring.

Would love to hear your comments!

Winthrop-University Hospital: Smartphone Messaging and Web-Based On-Call Scheduling

We’re pleased that our customer Winthrop-University Hospital is implementing Amcom solutions for smartphone messaging and Web-based on-call scheduling in its 591-bed facility in Long Island, N.Y. The forward-looking hospital will use the Amcom applications to enable highly mobile caregivers to better communicate, elevating patient care and safety.

Winthrop will use the Amcom Mobile Connect smartphone messaging solution to send critical messages to caregivers on their BlackBerry and iPhone smartphones, which will be used to acknowledge the inquiry. The hospital plans to implement the solution on 100 phones in 2011, with plans to add up to 1,000 more phones in 2012.

The Amcom Web-based on-call scheduling solution, WebXchange, will serve several purposes at Winthrop. Staff will be able to update on-call schedules at any time to reflect even last-minute calendar changes. This Web portal can also be used to send critical messages to smartphones as well as other communication tools at Winthrop, including pagers, desk phones, and email applications.

Read the full announcement.

Supporting an Aged Care Facility with Mobile Communications

While we talk a lot about hospitals staff’s needs for mobile communications, there’s another facet of healthcare that has similar requirements: aged/senior care. Many of these organizations offer residents a range of care options from self-sufficient apartments to round-the-clock medical assistance. The ability to send notifications from in-room nurse call and other facility-wide monitoring systems (door alarms, building management) directly to caregiver’s mobile devices is growing in popularity. This speed of communication improves response time to a variety of situations, some of which are life-threatening. It also helps staff work more efficiently by knowing the exact location and nature of the alarm.

Case in point, we just issued a story about Queensland, Australia-based aged care provider Bethany Christian Care. This progressive organization has improved their responsiveness to resident calls for assistance by using Amcom middleware. The solution works with Bethany Christian Care’s nurse call system to escalate requests for resident assistance directly to staff on their Cisco Wi-Fi phones. This enables staff to tend to residents’ needs more quickly, complying with both industry regulations and its own mission for quick response times.

Read more in the press release.

MedCentral Health System Embraces Mobility With Middleware

One of our customers is really doing a banner job with how it enhances the way staff work and receive system-generated notifications at two facilities in Ohio. They are using our enterprise middleware to centralize alerts for AeroScout’s Temperature Monitoring solution and Soarian healthcare information system orders for EKG and respiratory technicians. They are also finalizing the integration of alerts such as critical codes and patient requests from their GE Telligence and TekTone nurse call systems. Once alerts are detected from these systems, the Amcom middleware distributes them immediately to the appropriate on-duty staff member’s Cisco Wi-Fi phone for faster response.

Now the correct technicians know exactly where out-of-tolerance refrigerators for critical medications are located, or if blanket warmers in the maternity area show signs of incorrect heating patterns. Likewise, respiratory therapy and cardio technicians can receive an immediate order that a patient in a particular room has been scheduled for testing or treatment at a certain time.

Every day, Amcom middleware is connecting an ever-wider array of inputs to an ever-wider array of end points. It is facilitating a connected organization and linking what was once a large number of islands of information. Doing this increases patient safety and the efficiency of caregivers – both necessary in today’s healthcare environment. We think this is a must-have technology as communications are becoming more and more complex in hospitals and middleware helps to bring order to the chaos.

Read more in the press release. Drop us a note about how you’re managing staff work patterns when it comes to system-generated notifications.

The Interesting Reign of Pagers

There is no doubt that pagers dominated mobile healthcare communications for decades. In fact, they were pretty much the only option for people who needed to receive important alerts away from a landline phone.

But how much has this dominance changed? Some people stated that smartphones were going to quickly become the new standard. But now a fuller picture is emerging, one in which pagers still play an important role alongside many other devices, including but not limited to smartphones.

In the survey we conducted of 300+ healthcare organizations (mentioned in previous blogs), we found that paging has actually declined very little. When asked “Compared to three years ago, how has the number of pagers within your hospital changed?”, 26.6% of respondents said they had increased pager use, while 34% had stayed constant or seen a small decline. (Access survey results here.)

To explain this, we should look at the reasons pagers have been around as long as they have.

Survivability: Even in disaster situations over the past decade, such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Minneapolis bridge collapse, pagers performed their duties even when cellular coverage failed. This is an important consideration for life and death cases in hospitals.

Low cost: There are several factors to consider when comparing pagers with smartphones. First, there’s the device itself. Pagers can often be free for a facility with a paging system compared to a few hundred for each smartphone. Second, the monthly costs for service are significantly higher for cellular devices as well. Third, there’s a repair or replacement cost to think of. Again, next to nothing for a pager, but not so for the alternative. Given these costs, hospitals aren’t going to give or support smartphones for every single mobile staff member. Caregivers and administrators will likely need these devices, but not housekeeping or meal services staff, for example. Pagers are a more cost-effective choice for these roles.

Easy to use: Pagers are pretty streamlined and easy for IT or communications teams to support. There’s a single use for pagers versus the wide arena of capabilities inherent with a smartphone. Little training is required for someone who’s been handed a pager. The options for response are easy to understand and straightforward.

So at the end of the day pagers are going to be around for a long time—just like so many other mobile communications devices. Hospitals just need to be able to keep messages flowing whether recipients receive them on a pager, smartphone, Wi-Fi phone, voice communications badge, or whatever else they prefer. Right message, person, time, device.

What have you seen at your hospital as far as pager use?

Industry Debate: Buy Versus Build

We’ve been hearing some noise in the industry that acquired technology is inferior to building it in-house from the ground up. Since acquisitions are part of pretty much any successful tech company’s growth strategy today, I thought it’d be worth some discussion.

Technology just moves too quickly to invent everything all by yourself. It’s hard to name one successful technology company that has not made acquisitions. Cisco, as an example, has built their company around well-thought-out acquisitions that they then integrate successfully.

Amcom, as well, has acquired companies to build out portions of our suite to fit customer needs with a broad solution set. Our customers have told us that this is what they want—a full set of software solutions that work together. This is preferable to having a bunch of software applications that are thrown into a ‘suite’ from several different companies’ technologies and crossing your fingers that they work flawlessly together without any help (because they won’t).

The ultimate proof point of a successful technology company is having many installed, happy customers. Amcom has this in spades. Our solutions are field proven and in use every day. We don’t subscribe to N.I.H. (‘Not Invented Here’ - so therefore bad) but instead we strive to create solutions that work well and deliver value for our customers.

Our customers also know that we will be around tomorrow. We have been in business more than 25 years, have more than $50 million in sales, and are growing and profitable. No one will wake up tomorrow and find that we are out of business. Incidentally, we spend more on research and development than some of our competitors have in total sales. We are building plenty of solutions ourselves and making meaningful enhancements to others all the time.

We want to solve our customers’ problems so they can meet the requirements of the changing communications landscape. Most of what we deliver we will create ourselves. However, there is some functionality our customers want very quickly, and we will make acquisitions where it makes sense. We believe this serves our customers well, and serving customers well is our real goal.

So when it comes to comparing buy versus build, it’s not like comparing apples to orangutans as some software companies out there want buyers to believe. Actually, it’s like comparing apples, to, well, apples in my book if the acquisitions are done well. As in the case of Amcom, we’ve built a lot of technology from scratch over the years. We’ve also made acquisitions. But the technology acquired was built from the ground up at well-respected organizations. And what we acquired was exactly that – organizations. So that means it’s solid technology but also much more. This includes development and QA teams, product experts, leadership staff, and other important personnel and knowledge.

Drop us a note to let us know your perspective on the buy versus build topic.

New Findings on the Diversity of Devices

We’ve talked about this important topic previously, but now we have an even clearer picture of what’s happening out in the industry. Based on the results of a hospital communications survey we performed (access survey here), hospitals are currently using 5.8 different devices on average within their facilities to communicate with users. Using pagers alone is not enough anymore.

We discovered within the 300+ healthcare organizations surveyed that healthcare organizations need to communicate with a variety of devices, including pagers, smartphones, traditional cell and desk phones, Wi-Fi phones, Vocera badges, email systems, tablets, and more. In fact, different staff members tend to need different things. Nurses often rely on Wi-Fi phones, housekeeping on pagers, and physicians on smartphones. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

Our research actually shows that hospitals will become more diverse in the number of devices they use in the future rather than less. But as long as messages reach the right people on the right devices at the right time, patient safety standards can be protected and staff can be satisfied. You should be able to send a notification from a single system and reach all message recipients simultaneously, regardless of the devices that they carry.

What’s happening in your organization as far as device use?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

A New and Exciting Chapter in the Amcom Story

As you may have seen, USA Mobility has acquired Amcom Software. We’re thrilled about the promise this holds for our customers, partners, and employees.

The acquisition is about combining the two leaders in mission-critical communications. USA Mobility is the undisputed leader in paging -- the foundation of mission-critical communications today. Increasingly, however, the requirements of mission-critical communications are evolving.

Pagers were once the lone device option for urgent communications in healthcare, government, and public safety. But today’s leading organizations speed response by communicating with a diverse array of methods and devices. That’s where Amcom comes in as the leader in delivering software solutions which enable seamless, critical communications.

Amcom connects people across a universe of devices and contact methods that is always expanding. This powerful combination creates one company at the forefront of mission-critical communications, providing end-to-end solutions today and tomorrow so the right people get the right information on the right device at the right time.

Read the full press release.

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Emergency Notification + Mobility = Better Response and Care

While the need to rally teams quickly in your hospital is certainly not new, there are an increasing number of ways to reach the right people when time is of the essence. Although pagers were once the standard for simultaneous communications, now staff can specify a wide range of devices on which they can be contacted.

For example, if you have a critical code, such as when a heart attack patient arrives, you probably have to let many people know that they will play a role in the very near future. The Cath Lab, cardiologists, nurses, lab technicians, and more can receive the appropriate message and respond with their availability. This is the key – being able to track responses easily and let alternate staff know if someone can’t make it. All of this can happen using common communications devices and systems such as smartphones, pagers, email, desk phones, and others. Logging all correspondence throughout the process also comes in handy when the Joint Commission asks for audit trails.

Best of all, better communications during emergencies helps improve patient care as staff focus more on doing their jobs and less on making multiple phone calls. Case in point, Amcom customer Goshen General Hospital in Indiana reduced its average time for treating heart attack patients (the “door-to-balloon time”) from 129 minutes to 68 minutes – a 47 percent reduction.

See for yourself how it all works in this video.

Drop us a line with your thoughts on emergency notification procedures.

Mobile Communications in Action at Maple Grove Hospital

Maple Grove Hospital truly embraces the latest technology, and we’re proud to be part of their communication solution. Built from the ground up and opened in 2009, this state-of-the-art facility is as quiet as it is modern. This helps promote healing and reduces stress for patients as well as staff.

Behind the scenes, Amcom middleware connects to the Rauland-Borg nurse call system and Philips patient monitoring units to send staff alerts on their Vocera badges. This allows the right staff members to receive notifications and respond to changes in patient conditions quickly – without a lot of noise and confusion.

Another interesting thing about how staff communicate is that because different alerts are sent to different staff members, general efficiency is amazing. If a patient presses the ‘pain’ button on the nurse call system’s bedside control unit, that goes to the appropriate nurse. But a request for ‘water’ or ‘toilet’ goes to an aide. There’s also an LED screen in each room where nurses can request supply replenishment as needed to avoid spending time tracking down particular items.

Right message, person, device, time. It’s hard to beat.

Learn more from Maple Grove’s CEO Andy Cochrane in Healthcare Executive Insight’s recent article.