Symbol Technologies Integrates NetVision Phone with Nurse Call System to Improve Caregiver Response Time

Successful Installation of Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) Nurse Call for Evanston Northwestern Healthcare at Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview, Illinois

Symbol Technologies, Inc. , a global leader in enterprise mobility solutions, today announced that nurse call capability is now available for its wireless .

The announcement follows the successful implementation at Glenbrook Hospital in suburban Chicago by McKesson Information Solutions with nurse call systems from Dukane Corporation and telecommunications equipment from Nortel Networks.

nurse call administration is expected to dramatically improve patient response time by caregivers. Today, when a patient presses a bedside nurse call button, a light outside the room or at the nursing station illuminates to alert available nurses in the vicinity. In some systems, a unit secretary may respond to initial requests before paging a duty nurse via loudspeaker.

Using the new system, nurses equipped with a Symbol NetVision Phone can now instantly receive voice and data messages and directly respond to a patient's request. In addition, doctors, who may be out of the vicinity when they are paged about a specific issue, can communicate directly with a patient's assigned caregiver through one of the VoIP phones.

"We have seen an increase in patient satisfaction levels for nurse call response time using the Symbol NetVision Phone, compared to floors that don't have wireless nurse call administration," said Tom Smith, CIO of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, an academic healthcare system in Chicago's northern suburbs.

"The ability to quickly locate the right clinical staff member is essential to allowing a patient unit to operate efficiently. We expect this will enhance the patient's overall hospital experience and satisfaction," Smith added.

McKesson Information Solutions managed the wireless nurse call pilot implementation at Glenbrook Hospital. Five nurses at any given time can receive nurse call messages within a 30-bed wing of the hospital that was equipped with a Symbol Wi-Fi (802.11b) .

"We are pleased to aid in the improvement of nursing staff mobility with this innovative application of technology," said Richard Bravman, vice chairman and CEO of Symbol Technologies.

"Glenbrook Hospital is a perfect example of how to maximize existing wireless data networks for voice applications, as its voice and telephony communications now operate over the same infrastructure earmarked for mobile medical data applications," Bravman added.

Wireless nurse call communication at Glenbrook Hospital, being implemented by McKesson Information Solutions and the hospital's telecommunications staff, interfaces with Dukane's ProCare 6000 Advanced Healthcare Communication System. The Nortel Meridian 1 telephone switch with voice gateway server allows seamless wireless telephony with Symbol's NetVision Phone and Wi-Fi certified wireless networks.

Symbol's mobility solutions are being demonstrated at the Symbol and McKesson booths at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference under way this week in San Diego, CA. The Symbol Technologies media kit for HIMSS can be found online at .

For more information about the Symbol NetVision Phone, visit or .

About Evanston Northwestern Healthcare

Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, located in Chicago's northern suburbs, is an academic healthcare system comprised of six entities. The system includes three hospitals Evanston, Glenbrook and Highland Park Hospital. As an integrated delivery system, the Corporation also includes ENH Medical Group, ENH Home Services and ENH Research Institute. For eight consecutive years Evanston Northwestern Healthcare has been named among theTop 100 nationally and among the Top 15 Major Teaching Hospitals.