Vocera! Can you talk to...?

[LibraNurse27, BSN, RN]

Does anyone's job use Voceras? I'm not a big fan but I see how they make communication easier on a big unit. I think it creates a Pavlovian negative association. Whenever your Vocera rings you know you're in trouble or have more work coming at you! In my hospital the unit was small so our clerk just overhead paged us, as in "LibraNurse, room 4!" or LibraNurse to nurse station." That was stressful and hectic, because unlike Vocera it didn't ask "Can you talk to...?" and give you the opportunity to be unavailable. You had to hit your call light, say you were in another room tied up and hope the clerk would find someone else to answer that light. 

What communication systems do your jobs use? Pros and cons? Just curious! The best part of Vocera is at the end of the day when it says "I'm logging you out!" Worst is when someone calls you in the bathroom and you accidentally accept the call LOL 

[NightNerd, MSN, RN]

UUUGGGGGHHHH Vocera. Sometimes it can be kinda handy. Most of the time it's a pain in the butt. My personal hell is when I'm trying to call, say, pharmacy, and it keeps trying to send me to random people whose names sound nothing like "pharmacy." Makes me psychotic!

[klone, MSN, RN]

I love Vocera. We used it at one facility in Denver. Other places have used cell phones. Some places use nothing at all. 
 

I remember one midwife I worked with initially recorded her name while she was in the bathroom, so it was really echoey. Every time I’d call her, it always gave me a chuckle. 

[Guest 1152923]

I've used Vocera at several hospitals and IMHO, it is the next thing to worthless.  As NightNerd pointed out, the voice recognition is terrible and the battery always seems to discharge at the absolute worst/critical times.  Junk technology!

[LibraNurse27, BSN, RN]

7 hours ago, NightNerd said:

UUUGGGGGHHHH Vocera. Sometimes it can be kinda handy. Most of the time it's a pain in the butt. My personal hell is when I'm trying to call, say, pharmacy, and it keeps trying to send me to random people whose names sound nothing like "pharmacy." Makes me psychotic!

LOL yes!! I'll try to ask it to call someone named Kelly, and it says "calling Administration Team"... ??

[HarleyvQuinn, MSN, RN, NP]

Always loved it when I was trying to be discreet about taking a quick bathroom break and that sucker blares out my name giving me away. Embarrassing as all get out and you're trying to whisper that "no" you can't take the call in the freaking bathroom. One moment's peace, please!

[Sour Lemon]

I only used mine to say things like "beam me up". I don't remember actually answering it.

[OUxPhys, BSN, RN]

It is horrible and I wish we went back to the phones we would carry. 

[marienm, RN, CCRN]

When the voice recognition works, I like it. I also like being able to assign yourself to different user groups on the fly...so if you float, you can join the new unit's group. (This probably depends on how your hospital has set up the system, though.  For example, I can add myself to my unit and also to the "charge nurse" channel for the unit, so anyone in the hospital can call "Burn unit charge nurse" and they will reach whoever is in charge that shift, assuming the charge nurse has assigned themself to that channel.) 

Like any system, training is key (I see a lot of people talking into the bottom of their vocera...not where the microphone is...and then frustrated when it doesn't work. Or they use the wrong voice command to join/leave a group and then blame the vocera.).  It's also not great at understanding accents. 

I also like being able to decline calls by voice/hands-free, since we wear contact gowns on my unit frequently!  I've never worked with any other system...the Ascom phone system that people describe here where a patient can call you directly on a phone (while you might be wrist-deep in who-knows-what) sounds awful to me! I'd rather they just used their call light and hope a co-worker can check on them sooner than I can. But if that's what I had learned to use, I guess I'd get used to it.

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

My last facility used Vocera which was my first experience with it and it was an adjustment and mildly annoying. Where I’m at now (and prior to the Vocera facility) we use Voalte phones.
I do see now how the Vocera was more beneficial in certain situations where my hands were tied - it was easier to push the button quickly and talk into Vocera to ask for what I need, versus needing to actually dial on a phone and hold it to my ears. But I do enjoy being able to send texts and group texts via Voalte. So both have their pros and cons. 

[LibraNurse27, BSN, RN]

I liked a feature we had at my hospital called Secure Chat where you can send instant messages to doctors, other nurses, pharmacy, social work, etc. Each conversation had the patient's name and you could add and delete people, like a group text. For non urgent things was much less annoying to MDs than paging them for small questions/requests, and they usually responded quickly or put in orders. For emergencies of course still paged. I miss you, Secure Chat!

[marienm, RN, CCRN]

We have Secure Chat in our EMR but we don't use it the same way as the Vocera. Vocera tends to be for immediate stuff, like new patients being assigned by the bed admin, RRT coverage, and "can someone help me boost bed 8?." We use Chat for non-urgent conversations with providers (renew an order, pt has mild headache, do you want routine CBC on this pt today?).  I guess some staff use Chat like instant messenger to chat with friends (risky idea, IMO) but for actual *work* purposes we use them differently.