More freedom of movement for nursing staff: Cloud PBX and alarm server connect nurse call system to DECT handsets
The safety and well-being of the residents is the top priority at the St. Jakobus home in Schutterwald, Baden-Württemberg. To give the nursing staff more freedom of movement, the technically outdated telecommunications solution at the Caritasverband Kinzigtal facility was to be replaced by a new system that is compatible with the existing nurse call system. Four technology partners worked together to rebuild the entire telecommunications infrastructure in the shortest possible time: if a call button is pressed in one of the rooms in the residential groups, the nursing staff are notified directly on their mobile device. This creates more flexibility for the important work at the retirement home.
The challenge: the marriage of the nurse call system and the telecommunications infrastructure
It is quiet at the Haus St. Jakobus in Schutterwald. Most of the senior citizens are in their single rooms. There are more than 50 of them in the facility of the Caritasverbands Kinzigtal, which supports people in the towns and communities between Offenburg and Freiburg. Some of the older ladies and gentlemen have arranged to meet in the ‘Jakobstreff’ on the ground floor of the building after lunch. They are playing cards, a game of Ludo or chatting. In one of the kitchens in the four residential groups, biscuit dough is being rolled out for afternoon coffee. ‘Here the residents can live as they would have done at home,’ says Barbara Seigel, a nurse at Haus St. Jakobus. ‘There is always something to do.’
However quiet it may be in the spacious rooms of the Caritasverband, help is on hand immediately if needed. The residents can request assistance at any time using a call button in their rooms. Barbara Seigel and her team are on constant call. When the button is pressed, a light signal lights up above the door of the room and in the nursing staff's room, which is therefore always manned. In times of a nursing shortage and high sick leave, this cannot always be guaranteed one hundred percent. So the Caritasverband Kinzigtal was looking for a more mobile solution that would also support the desired One Number Concept – i.e. the simultaneous use of a landline number on different end devices or automatic forwarding to other telephones or mobile devices. It should also be possible to integrate unified communications solutions, for example for home offices, and cross-location telephony to other Caritas Kinzigtal facilities.
‘The task was tricky,’ recalls Daniel Schnebel. The managing director of Schnebel IT-Systemhaus GmbH in Zell am Harmersbach analysed the situation on site: ‘The DECT system used had already been discontinued by the manufacturer Auerswald – there was no way to get spare parts for the handsets. And the telecommunications system was also getting on in years. Certain functionalities that were important to Caritas could not have been implemented with it.’ So Schnebel advised replacing the existing telecommunications infrastructure. For years, he had had good experiences with the PBX systems from Starface and the DECT systems from Gigaset, which are highly compatible with each other. However, for use in the retirement home in Schutterwald, the hardware also had to be connected to the nurse call system from hospicall. The pilot project at Haus St. Jakobus began.
The solution: Three technology partners combine PBX, DECT and alarm server
‘There were no empirical values that we could refer to. So we had to develop the solution from scratch.’ Initial attempts to connect the nurse call system directly to the Gigaset DECT manager failed. The transfer of the SIP message protocol was not standardised. ‘We had recently developed an open alarm, messaging and location interface for our IP DECT base stations,’ says Felix Grabow, Technical Sales Manager at Gigaset. ‘This allows Gigaset's single- and multi-cell systems to be connected to messaging and alarm servers. There was no such server in Schutterswald.’ And so two more partners came into play: Gigaset recommended a system from point omega AG – and hospicall, the manufacturer of the nurse call system, was also brought in.
‘Coordinating so many companies with their respective expertise is not always easy,’ explains Volker März, then Chief Operating Officer at point omega. “But we had a common goal - namely to find a future-proof solution for the Caritas Kinzigtal association.” This was achieved through close collaboration: The cloud PBX system Starface VM Edition and the Gigaset N870 IP PRO multicell system are at the heart of the solution. The RedOne alarm server from point omega was integrated via Gigaset's open AML interface. This in turn enables communication with the hospicall P3 nurse call system via an ESPA interface. The nursing staff at Haus St. Jakobus are now notified directly on their personal mobile device when the call button is pressed in any of the rooms.
The on-call room no longer has to be permanently manned, as the Gigaset S700H PRO handsets signal the call regardless of where the team members are in the building. If the call is accepted via one of the DECT handsets, the alarm is initially paused. The nurse call only ends when a switch in the room is mechanically operated. This gives the nursing staff more time to be where they are most needed – with the residents of the retirement home.
And the wish of the Caritasverband Kinzigtal regarding its One Number Concept was also fulfilled: the cloud-based PBX system from Starface allows a single telephone number to be used from any location. And unified communications solutions such as Microsoft Teams for use from the home office can also be easily integrated.
Daniel Schnebel, Felix Grabow and Volker März agree: the project is a prime example of interdisciplinary cooperation between partners with different areas of expertise. And proof of the high compatibility of the hardware used. The field test at Haus St. Jakobus was a success and the solution is now ready for use in other care facilities.
