JPS Health Network Turns to VoiceLink™
Fort Worth Public Hospital Implements Medical Communications System to Improve Patient Safety, Boost Productivity
FORT WORTH, TX, May 23, 2005 – Fort Worth's bustling John Peter Smith Hospital is implementing an advanced medical communications system to ensure that critical patient findings reach the right physicians in time to make a difference for the patients.
The enterprise-wide system is called, VoiceLink™ from Vocada, Inc., a Dallas-based company that developed and patented the technology. JPS, the public hospital for Tarrant County is one of a growing list of hospitals turning to VoiceLink and one of the first to adopt it for all of its diagnostic departments – radiology, pathology labs, and cardiology.
VoiceLink eliminates the medical communication delays and failures that plague busy hospitals and clinics. It is now widely recognized in the hospital industry that medical communications problems threaten patient safety. The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations now requires hospitals to take specific steps to improve communications among care givers.
VoiceLink automates the often time-consuming process of communicating critical patient findings from a diagnostic department, such as radiology, pathology or cardiology to an ordering physician. The diagnostic physician or lab technician makes one call to report a critical finding and VoiceLink does the rest:
- Alerts – repeatedly, if necessary – the ordering physician or medical team member that a patient's report is ready for retrieval;
- Documents when the alert is sent and when the voice message is retrieved, and notifies the diagnostic clinician of the status;
- Retains the original voice message and documentation in a searchable archive for 10 years, or even longer.
- Ensures compliance with all regulatory and accreditation standards.
"We chose VoiceLink because we believe it will provide information about our patients' conditions to our providers in the most effective and timely manner possible," said Kristin Jenkins, vice president Administrative Services and chief corporate officer for JPS Health Network. "This system will allow patients to receive appropriate treatment more quickly, and therefore, improve outcomes."
JPS officials said VoiceLink's ease of use was a big selling point. Because it is a hosted system, it requires no investment in hardware or software.
"Our Radiology Department already has gone to a Web-based, digital system for viewing radiological images, so VoiceLink fits in perfectly with the trend there," said Lee Jobes, JPS regulatory coordinator.
Ms. Jenkins also sees VoiceLink as a productivity tool and a tool for managing the general area of critical communications at the hospital.
"This will reduce the time that lab and radiology technicians and pathologists and radiologists spend trying to reach the appropriate physician with test results," she said. "It also will give us greater insights into where we have communication gaps by tracking all calls made, how long it took to get a response, and so forth. VoiceLink will enable us to make improvements where necessary."
VoiceLink, she added, will be especially important at JPS, because it is a teaching hospital, where physician teams include resident physicians, post-graduate fellows, medical students, and faculty physicians. JPS has 170 resident physicians on staff, plus about 200 attending physicians.
"This tool (VoiceLink) will ensure test results are received by the correct member or members of a physician team without duplication of calls or missed calls," Ms. Jenkins said.
Liz Bean, patient safety officer at JPS, said VoiceLink will be a major part of the patient safety net at the hospital and will provide valuable data for performance improvement. She also noted that VoiceLink is HIPAA-compliant, meaning that it protects patient privacy as required by Federal law.
In addition to enhancing patient safety, boosting productivity and providing a powerful management tool, Ms. Jenkins notes one other benefit about VoiceLink.
"I believe our commitment to providing this level of patient safety and care gives us a competitive advantage in the marketplace," she said, "because I am not aware of another local health system that has implemented this or any other comparable communications system hospital-wide as we are doing."
In addition to JPS Health Network, other hospitals around the country using VoiceLink include: University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, USC-LA County Medical Center, Centinela Hospital, Kings County Medical Center (New York City), Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston), Baylor University Medical Center (Dallas), and Albert Einstein Medical Center (Philadelphia), as well as many others.
About JPS Health Network
JPS Health Network, operated by the Tarrant County Hospital District, serves about 750,000 patients annually through its hospital, John Peter Smith, and a network of community clinics. The hospital, located near downtown Fort Worth, is licensed for 459 beds. It is a teaching hospital affiliated with The University of North Texas Health Science Center, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Texas A&M University School of Medicine, and Baylor University Medical Center. For more information, visit www.jpshealthnet.org.
About Vocada, Inc.
Vocada is a Dallas-based company that has created the first fail-safe medical communications system for critical patient findings. The privately held company was founded in October 2000 by brothers Peter and Thomas White, who were both previously involved with other innovative and successful technology ventures. The company's first product, VoiceLink™, was introduced in 2003. For more information, visit www.vocada.com.
Media Contact: Greg Graze, 214-665-9440, or greg@grazepr.com