In-hospital paging systems: an effective method of communication between hospital staff in 2015?

Abstract

Policies in relation to paging are designed to achieve effective in-hospital communication. This study recorded data in relation to pages received by interns over a two-week period. A survey was conducted assessing perceptions on paging and existing hospital policy. Four interns collected data in relation to 20 regular-day, 4 extended-day and 4 on-call (two weekday and two weekend) shifts (n=423 pages). Sixty-nine pages (16%) were made during pager-free periods. On average 3 minutes per hour were spent dealing with pages. Compliance with ISBAR ranged from 50.1% to 83.4%. Of the episodes where pages were made during protected times (n=85), 67% did not meet urgent criteria. While the majority of these pages were from nurses, they were less likely to violate the policy than other staff (relative risk 0.648, p=0.016). Efforts need to be made to ensure pager-free periods are respected in the interest of effective communication, staff morale and protected training time.