COVID-19 Q&A
Vocera Offers the New Standard for PPE to Protect Patients and Healthcare Workers During COVID-19 and Beyond
Brent Lang, chairman and CEO of Vocera Communications Inc., shares insights about hands-free communication and strategies to protect the safety and well-being of patients and healthcare workers during COVID-19 and beyond.
What solutions does Vocera offer to help hospitals respond to COVID-19?
Clinicians can wear the Vocera Badge and Vocera Smartbadge under their personal protective equipment (PPE) and com- municate hands-free without leaving the patient’s bedside. Whether working in a triage tent, the ICU, or an isolation room inside or outside the hospital, care teams members can connect quickly with simple voice commands, while minimiz- ing risk of contamination and preserving valuable PPE.
When clinicians don and Vocera Badge
doff PPE, there is a chance of contamination. Here is where our hands-free com- munication devices become so valuable. Vocera technol- ogy is essential in mission- critical environments and emergency situations. After
speaking with and watching clinicians on the frontlines, it has become clear that our wearable, voice-controlled solutions must be part of the new standard for PPE. Additionally, the Vocera Software Plat- form has been critical for enabling care teams to collaborate by voice, text and intelligent
alerting to
triage patients quickly and safely. The platform integrates
with more
than 150 clinical and operational systems, in- cluding EHRs, to enable fast patient throughput and increase capac- ity. In many hospitals, the number of isola- tion rooms is limited. That’s why, whether a patient tests positive or
negative for COVID-19, it’s important that the assigned nurse and infection preven- tion specialist are notified immediately. A patient who tests negative can be moved out of isolation to make room for another patient. Because our platform filters and prioritizes information, an alert about a patient’s COVID-19 test results can be auto- matically pushed from the EHR to the right care team member’s hands-free device, smartphone app, or web console.
What are the greatest challenges healthcare organizations are facing because of COVID-19? Protecting the physical health as well as the mental and emotional well-being of both patients and care teams on the front- lines is one of the greatest challenges our healthcare customers are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue facing. Even when we flatten the curve and patient surges ease up, the toll of this cri- sis will have a lasting impact. Healthcare workers entered their professions to care for others and save lives. Seeing patients in isolation with no family members able to visit is adding an extra layer of cogni- tive and emotional burden on these com- passionate people who are risking their lives each day on the frontlines. Many healthcare leaders are looking for ways to support their staff and provide human- centered resources to strengthen their resil- ience and capacity for caring long-term.
Vocera Smartbadge
How can Vocera help address these and other challenges caused by COVID-19? We have seen many of our customers establish pop-up bed locations by re- appropriating existing space and extend- ing facilities and services beyond hospital walls to tents, convention centers, arenas, hotels, factories, and ships. The challenge of this drastic change is compounded by
Brent Lang,
Chairman & CEO Vocera Communications Inc.
the speed and scale at which it is happen- ing. So, our teams of highly accomplished clinical executives, informaticists, and technology experts are taking the burden off our customers to ensure care teams can communicate with each other and with patients easily and safely. They are performing gap assessments, customizing communication plans, and implement- ing new clinical workflows all remotely without putting stress on already strained resources at the hospitals. We also devel- oped a new solution to help patients in pop-up isolation beds feel more connected to their care team and families.
How do you see the next 6 to 12 months playing out for hospitals in the context of COVID-19? Many hospitals will likely maintain many new processes they have implemented because of COVID-19, especially in emer- gency departments and how patients are triaged through the hospital. Organizations will want to maintain certain COVID-19 protocols and resources to pivot quickly if there is another patient surge. The new nor- mal will look different, but the main focus, as it always has been, will be on protecting the safety and well-being of patients and staff. I think clinicians wearing PPE will be a standard part of healthcare delivery. Resources to support the emotional and psychological well-being of patients, fami- lies and healthcare workers also will need to be readily available.
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