Pocket Paging in a Hospital

In a Hospital there is often not enough to page a person where only the initiator number is shown in the receiver display. A significant difference in tone characteristics, priority and text it is often a demand. This applies especially to alarms and calls for key, critical personnel teams like doctors, x-ray, anesthesia and nurses during heart failures and other complications. But it is also useful for call requests from doors, elevators and technical alarms to other key personnel.

Search types

The search types can be divided in to three categories:

1. Normal: Activated by dialing the station or dummy number plus digit 1. The A-subscriber directory number is shown in the Pocket Pager receiver display. The recipient dials the shown number from the closest STENTOFON to get in contact with the sender.
2. Alarm: Activated by dialing the station or dummy number plus the last DAK key (DAK10). The A-subscriber name is shown in the Pocket Pager receiver display, and there is a different tone characteristic and priority than the normal search type. Often used to reach medical emergency teams that must physically reach the sender as soon as possible, thus making the name rather than the number more important. Can also be used to send other texts then own station name from master stations; for example “HELI 20 MINS” to give medial emergency teams information about an incoming helicopter. In this case it is actually the B-subscriber station name that is transmitted.
3. Technical alarm: Activated from RCI or DAK without additional digits. Could be given a dedicated characteristic which differs from normal and alarm search types. Could also be used for door station calls or other types of substation calls.

System requirements

The alarm search type requires AMC10.23 or later, and AlphaPro 10.29 or later.

Limitations

Search type Alarm cannot be combined in the same system with Pocket Paging calls using answer code (*45), because they use the same field from the MDF (Message Description File).

Programming

All Pocket Pagers are defined in the Pocket Paging window

or from the Users&Stations window through the Pager button.

The team search number can only be deinfed from the Pocket Paging window.

Search Type: Normal

Change *44 to *1 in Directory&Features. In the Autoload the default code for "Repeat Absent Message" is digit 1 during conversation. If this feature is used, then it must be changed to a different number first. A good idea can be to use *44 for this feature instead of *1. This is achieved by changing *1 to a temporarily number. i.e. *12, then changing *44 to *1 and finally changing *12 to *44.

Direct Pocket Paging is used to page personnel without a dedicated STENTOFON station. Direct Pocket Paging is associated with a user number and not a physical number. A physical number can have multiple users. A good rule is to let these directory numbers be masked by the owner of the physical number:

The Pocket Pager receiver for the user is defined by clicking the Pager button:

The number dialled will be the Direct Pocket Paging number, the user will then be prompted to dial an additional digit to activate the paging. The paging process is then equal for users with and without a physical station. Such users does not require an ASLT board. Direct Pocket Paging has feature number 23/xxx, where xxx = user number 1-600 and can also be defined directly from the Directory&Feature window:

In a small system with many available physical numbers there is no need to have many users on a single physical number. If possible it is just as well to use a user with physical number for each "dummy" pager.

Priority and beep characteristic for search type Normal can be changed through the General Settings in the Pocket Pager window:

Search Type: Alarm

From AMC10.23 there is a new feature 25 with directory number *48 ment to be used for search type Alarm. This feature gives a different priority and beep characteristic from search type Normal, which can be changed in the General Settings in the Pocet Paging Window:

*48 can also be put on a DAK or search string as D48. It is also possible to configure a DAK key with a double function such as I614D48, giving the ordinary directory search in idle and paging with Alarm type during a conversation.