CASE STUDY

Overhead paging in a major healthcare facility was generating harmful noise levels that disrupted patient recovery. Strategic Mobility Group Rx (SMG3Rx) and Zebra Technologies resolved the issue through a customized deployment of clinical mobile devices.

Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and high-risk birthing centers relied on overhead paging to deliver staff alerts, emergency notifications, and patient assistance requests. While functionally necessary, this approach generated significant noise pollution throughout the facilities.

Research confirmed that NICU decibel levels in this hospital system were well above the baseline medical standard for transient noise and that overhead paging accounted for 77% of that noise. The consequences extended beyond discomfort. Patients experienced medical stress, sleep disruption, and adverse effects on cardiovascular, metabolic, and mental health, all of which impeded recovery.

The hospital needed a way to maintain critical communications without further exposing patients to harmful noise levels.

1. Replace facility-wide overhead paging with Zebra Technologies’ purpose-built mobile devices for healthcare.
2. Deploy and manage them through SMG3Rx’s EDGE Clinical Mobility as a Platform solution.

Four significant outcomes resulted from the SMG3Rx clinical mobility deployment:

1. Transitory noise in the NICUs decreased by two-thirds, bringing decibel levels in line with medical standards.
2. Patients were able to rest and recuperate without the disruption of constant overhead announcements.
3. Clinical staff gained fast, reliable, and more direct access to communications and patient data at the point of care.
4. The hospital achieved a scalable communication platform applicable across departments beyond the NICU.

SMG3Rx collaborated with the hospital’s IT and care teams to assess clinical workflows and communication requirements, then configured and deployed Zebra healthcare-grade mobile devices tailored to the NICU’s specific needs.

The combination solution from Zebra + SMG3Rx gave clinical staff the ability to:

• Receive alerts
• View health records
• Communicate via push-to-talk
• Send and receive secure texts
• Make phone calls
• Join video conferences

All from a single handheld device!

Emergency and patient notifications that had previously triggered overhead paging were routed directly to specific staff devices, eliminating the need to broadcast across the facility.

Replacing overhead paging with a tailored clinical mobile device strategy is a proven way to reduce hospital noise, route critical information directly in the hands of clinical staff, and improve patient outcomes.