Rauland Responder St Francis Case Study

Communication is critical to a hospital’s workflow and productivity and to each patients’ satisfaction. With that in mind, the 617 bed St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Connecticut sought to integrate mobile devices with its Rauland Responder 5 nurse call to further improve communication, reduce noise and gain detailed reporting.
When middleware couldn’t meet those needs, St. Francis didn’t hesitate to add Responder 5 and Direct Connect to get a system that was reliable, self-sufficient and integrated with mobile devices and EMR. Responder also delivered comprehensive reporting on staff and patient call activity and an open architecture with the ability to grow with expansion.
“We started on day one, and we had responses to all the staff members during emergency situations and the patient calls went through literally immediately. We used to have an average of 5 minutes between the point of the patient calling for a response from the nurse from the nurse’s station and it’s now down to an average of 12 seconds. We looked at all of the latest technologies and in the end Responder is what gave us what we needed.” - Angela Cotton, Clinical Budget Manager
“We needed a system that would connect these devices together in a seamless, streamlined fashion. After a review of our existing and the processes that we’d put in place, we found that Direct Connect was the best solution for us. We have a streamlined connection, we have very few delays and we don’t hear too much in terms of the need for support.” -Peter Sydie, I.T. Project Manager
“We had a lot of bells going off and after we implemented this system, the overhead paging was eliminated because the calls went directly to the handheld devices. It’s amazing how much quieter the nursing units are with the Responder system.” -Cotton
“With the Responder system we see the improvements in patient satisfaction, we are receiving the Press Ganey reports on a monthly basis and I do compare the report and there is a positive impact. Also the weekly rounding with the patients and family, the responses are much more positive using the Responder system. Just a push of the button, the right message goes to the direct people and we have a very quick response.” -- Krystyna Demusz, Nurse Manager
“What is really good about the phones is the fact that before the nurses even enter the room they have that conversation with the patient, so if there’s something that the patient needs besides the nurse to come into the room, the nurse can bring that and it saves a lot of steps. Since we’ve received the phones, my complaints have decreased tremendously.” - Carla Patrick, Nurse Manager
“The other thing we didn’t have before is any information in regard to the productivity of our staff members. We’d have complaints from nursing staff that some people responded faster than others, or what have you, but we had no way of proving any of this. With the direct connect we now have reporting, and with that reporting we are able to determine the speed at which the calls get answered, but also how many calls are answered by individual people in a given period of time. We can compare staff members with like assignments.” -Cotton
“The Responder system gives me the ability, as a nurse manager, to track what is the response rate when the patient calls for help, what is the time when the caregiver responds. It gives me the opportunity to follow up and make sure that the patients’ needs are met in a timely manner.” --Demusz,
“Our patient satisfaction scores have gone up since the use of the Responder system and I think, not only staff, but I think patients are happier. Nurses seem to be in the rooms a lot more frequently, they seem to be communicating with the patients more frequently. If there are questions that need to be answered, they seem to be answering those questions a lot quicker as well.” - Carla Patrick, Nurse Manager
“Our plan to go forward is to bring the Responder to all our nursing floors. As a matter of fact, we actually have nurse managers call me on a daily basis wondering when it’s their turn to get the system on their floor.” -Cotton
Learn more about St. Francis’ Responder experience:
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