THE Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust in Truro is introducing a new communications system that allows staff to contact each other instantly anywhere in the hospital through a voice-activated badge.

The hands-free device operates on a wireless local area network, weighs less than two ounces and enables users to speak to each other by saying a person’s name or department. They are automatically connected with the appropriate person and can speak to them just as on a normal telephone.

The Royal Cornwall is the first hospital in the UK to install the “Managed Vocera” system, which is designed by BT for an environment where staff need to be contacted urgently and are often away from a desk phone.

It uses mobile voice over internet protocol technology to convert voice into internet protocol packets that can be transmitted over the network and reassembled into voice at the receiving device.

It does away with the need for pagers and walkie-talkies,while communicating with a mobile phone is often prohibited in hospitals because of the potential for interference with critical equipment.

The project should pay back on the investment through efficiency savings within two and a half years, says Simon Goodwin, IT director for the trust.

“It also puts in place a wireless infrastructure that will support many other mobile applications,” he says.

Hospital porters and imaging assistants will be the first to use the system.

It is aware of the location of each “signed in” user across the hospital campus and can identify the nearest person capable of dealing with an emergency — from a security incident to a cardiac arrest.

The hospital is also linking the communications to its workflow management system in order to send porters details of their next job wherever they are in the hospital.

This single application alone should save £100,000 a year, says Goodwin.

The system can broadcast to a number of people, such as a team of specialists, to form a rapid-response unit, or it can find staff by function and location.

“The staff like it. Those using their badges have been approached by others asking where they can get one too,” says Goodwin.