On a visit to site yesterday, it was great to see our new plates in situ for the first time, and they looked good. Installed as part of a new Tacera installation they are enhancing the look of our product, while providing the functionality required.
Great to see another project completed and the ICU looking good.
This article was published in Health Estate Journal (HEJ) – Journal of the Institute of Healthcare and Engineering and Estate Management (March 2022 Volume 76 Number 3)
Thames Hospice’s new-build £22 million hospice, located on an eight-acre site by Bray lake in Maidenhead, features a specially adapted Austco nurse call system that allows patients to call for a nurse via an Amazon Echo (‘Alexa’) system, rather than having to press a button.
Initially the company’s standard nurse call system was installed as part of the construction of the hospice, which opened in October 2020. However, following a visit to Austco’s demonstration facility, staff saw an innovation they believed was a ‘must have’ for their patients.
Austco Communications Solutions Specialist explained: “Our engineers integrated our Tacera solution with Amazon Echo system to allow patients to call for a nurse. The usual buttons/handsets etc are still there, but the convenience – particularly for patients that may not have the strength to press a button – enables nurses to be alerted should the patient need them. All the patients have to do is call out ‘Alexa, help,’ and a call for that room is raised on the nurse call system. The entertainment system interprets the command, and, when recognised, sends a signal to the nurse call system. The two systems work together so that the source of the command can be translated into an alarm for the correct room. The call appears on the system as if the patient had pressed the call button. On entering the room, the nurse presses the ‘presence’ button, and can cancel the alarm from there. Patients also get the usual entertainment options the system offers in their room.”
“When our engineers visited the hospice, clinical staff explained that sometimes, when helping a patient, for example in a bathroom, they couldn’t always see the origin of a second call just raised. We addressed this by incorporating our mobile solution, Pulse Mobile (‘a native smartphone app that lets nurses manage alarms, and remote control the nurse call system, all from their personal smartphone’).”
At the request of the hospice’s staff, the engineers subsequently also configured the connection of bed mats to the nurse call system.
“Finally, there was a requirement during the pandemic to incorporate a COVID call onto the system in areas where the infection was present. With the system software-based, we were able to programme a new call type to allow for this. All of this clearly highlights the benefits of a modular system to which additional features can be added, as required, over time.”
To donate to Thames Hospice charity, please visit their website.
To read more of the March issue of HEJ, click here.
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Austco have taken the experiences of COVID lockdowns to develop a new way of Demonstrating their products. Remote demonstrations of our latest features can be carried out from our Demonstration Room in the UK. This is both convenient for Customers, but also environmentally friendly, reducing enormously on travel. Demonstrations to Spain, Austria, Switzerland and Norway have been carried out to date as well as in the UK, with more planned in the coming months.
To book your remote demonstration, call +441527 877778 or e-mail Sales.uk@austco.com.
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Another large project completed, and on site this week with the clinical team to fine tweak the software and ensure the system is operating based on their working processes and procedures. Great work David Furnell and Robbie Atkin.
At the recent International Hospital Federation Awards, it was great to see our CEO Clayton Astles up on the big screen as part of the Awards Committee. Congratulations to all the winners and honourable mentions for the Austco Excellence Award for Quality and Patient Safety as below:
Gold: Kaiser Permanente Northern California (United States), Automated Early Warning System of Adults at Risk for In-Hospital Clinical Deterioration Advance Alert Monitor (AAM) Program.
Silver: Royal Hospital (Oman), Learning through the cycle of improvement: A comprehensive approach to surgical site infection (SSI) prevention in post cardiac surgery patients.
Bronze: Saudi German Hospital Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Patient Safety Index (PSI) Program: An Innovative Methodology to Monitor and Evaluate Patient Safety Practices Hospital Universitari Mútua Terrassa (Spain), Autism General Hospital Tertiary Unit (UH-ASD): Serving the underserved, empowering the family and using mechanical contention zero.
Honourable Mentions:
All NHS Hospital projects have to start somewhere, and it doesn’t look pretty at the start and certainly nothing like a Healthcare environment. Much work goes on behind the scenes to ensure quality and at the end of the day patient safety is achieved, and this is organised by the Main Contractor working with the NHS teams and Subcontractors like ourselves. It doesn’t look pretty now, but watch this space for images of the end product when the project completes in the New Year.
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Great for Austco to be back in Gibraltar to be carrying out Lifecycle Upgrade works and Annual Maintenance. Thanks to the team on site for their support with this work.
We are delighted to have presented the Austco Excellence Award for Quality and Patient Safety at the IHF Awards ceremony at the World Hospital Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday. It was a great honour for Dave Webb to be representing Austco at the event, and congratulations to all the winners for their tremendous achievements.
