Overhead Paging Banned

[Adele_Michal7]

Hi all! I work in a SNF who recently announced all forms of overhead paging will be banned effective immediately.

Does anyone else work in a facility who went this route? How did it work out? What are your personal feelings on it?

Many I work with are frustrated.

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

When I work nights we don't page. We all have each others cell phone numbers and just text or call if another staff member is needed somewhere. On days however I couldn't imagine not being able to overhead page. We have one major incoming phone number that everybody uses and when a call comes in without the ability to page I can't imagine how anybody would ever get their phone calls.

We are strongly discouraged from overhead paging when State is in the building and it is truly a pain in the posterior to drop what you are doing and physically track down whoever the call is for just to tell them there is call on line whatever. So what happens is none of the nurses answer the phones unless absolutely necessary and calls get missed, or the call is answered by somebody who either doesn't track down the nurse the call is for, or just can't find that nurse so the caller gets tired of being on hold and hangs up. Bad enough when it's a family member calling and very bad when it's a provider who gets all sorts of ticked off because their call wasn't answered.

Nurses don't carry house phones or pagers and we tried some walky talkie type things awhile back that never did work right so that was abandoned pretty quickly. Unfortunately at this point our only option to reach staff quickly is the overhead page system

[LuvScience]

We replaced overhead paging, first with portable phones which didn't work out. The batteries didn't work well and the signal was lost in rooms or at the end of halls. Management then tried walkie talkies. The walkies were better but still had their draw backs. For them to be effective we needed to carry them around in our pockets where they were loud and disruptive during patient care. I would have much preferred a phone with messaging ability like some hospitals use. It is incredibly frustrating to try and get a nurse to the front desk to speak to a Dr. who is waiting on hold without any kind of paging system.

[benegesserit]

I work in two facilities. Both use overhead paging for emergencies only, and neither has any sort of portable contact/messaging system (one does allow sms for staff communication, and that is useful). It just isn't that big a deal. If you can't easily track the person down, you take a message. If the call is for someone in another area of the building entirely, you transfer the call. If you're expecting a call back from the on-call or something, you either wait or let someone else know and make yourself easy to track down.

I do think overhead paging would be very agitating and disruptive for confused residents, as well as staff trying to concentrate.

[Conqueror+, BSN, RN]

PRN at two LTC facilities. One swanky and one dumpy. No paging allowed at either. I for one am glad. I find it aggravating.

[nurseswholovenursing]

We have no overhead paging. Have earpieces we can talk to each other, the receptionist calls us if there is a phone call. On off hours it picks up phone calls. The residents don't like the overheads, and the state will tag u for the noise level. It is their home, and it makes them feel institutionalized. You will get used to it, just like everthing, change isn't always easy! Good Luck!

[Adele_Michal7, ASN, RN]

We have no overhead paging. Have earpieces we can talk to each other, the receptionist calls us if there is a phone call. On off hours it picks up phone calls. The residents don't like the overheads, and the state will tag u for the noise level. It is their home, and it makes them feel institutionalized. You will get used to it, just like everthing, change isn't always easy! Good Luck!

Oh goodness, I think earpieces would distract me more. But maybe that's just because I can really see them being misused by the people I work with. Lol.

[NurseQT]

The facility I work at does not allow overhead paging but does continue to have the call lights that have a beeping noise that can be heard overheard. They tried silencing them for a short time but ran into problems when a call light was on on one hall and no one knew except for those standing in that hall.. No one is ever paged overhead for a phone call, the HUC will transfer the call directly to the person's extension or to the cordless phones on the halls. We also have walkie talkies that can be used to get a hold of the maintanence guys and each phone has intercom options on it.

Long ago when I worked in the hospital everyone carried a pager, it was nice because if you were in one patients room and another patient pressed their call button we'd get an alert on the pager.