Beebe Healthcare Unveils CareAware: Cell Phone Technology for the Bedside

Beebe Healthcare launched CareAware Connect™, a new mobility and communications solution for healthcare professionals.

CareAware Connect looks like a cell phone, but it is used to provide communications, alarm management and nursing workflow tools on a single device. The devices allow clinicians to make voice calls inside and outside the healthcare facility, send HIPAA secure text messages and review clinical electronic medical record data and alerts on their smart phone device.

Patients and visitors to Beebe Healthcare can expect to see nurses and health professionals using the phones. These phones are not for personal use; they are solely used for patient information and secure communication about patients.

In addition to CareAware, Beebe Healthcare also unveiled Capacity Management, which allows healthcare teams to get an overview of all the patients in the hospital.

Some benefits for Capacity Management, also known as Patient Flow, are that it is:

• Providing a real-time overview of the patients in the hospital
• Reducing wait times for bed assignments
• Increasing visibility of bed and room conditions
• Accelerating patient throughput for our organization
• Allowing for greater efficiencies, productivity, and turnaround time for both Environmental Services and Transport services

These programs were possible because of a partnership between Beebe Healthcare’s Information Systems/Nursing Informatics teams and Cerner, a health Information Technology company. The project to bring the technology to Beebe started in September 2015 and resulted in a successful go-live in early April.

“The CareAware Connect phones allow for HIPAA secure communication options for the purposes of daily correspondence and care team collaboration, including but not limited to texting, voice calling, and other forms of messaging, and secondary alert notification workflows,” said Amy Papia, Director of Nursing Informatics at Beebe Healthcare. “In addition, nursing has been able to text providers with patient concerns and receive immediate responses to assist our patients. It is a win-win for both our team members and our patients.”

Beebe Healthcare is a not-for-profit community healthcare system with a charitable mission to encourage healthy living, prevent illness, and restore optimal health for the people residing, working, or visiting in the communities we serve. It offers services throughout Southern Delaware for residents and visitors, including a 210-licensed-bed hospital, a cancer center, and outpatient facilities providing walk-in care, lab, imaging, and physical rehabilitation services. For more information, please visit us online at www.beebehealthcare.org.

Shown are (left to right) Nancy Nonne, Ricardo Diaz, Kathy Podbesek, and Jamie Dickerson of the Beebe Healthcare Clinical Informatics Department.