Implementation and evaluation of an alpha-numeric paging system on a resident inpatient teaching service.

BACKGROUND Numeric pagers are commonly used communication devices in healthcare, but cannot convey important information such as the reason for or urgency of the page. Alphanumeric pagers can display both numbers and text, and may address some of these communication problems. OBJECTIVE Our primary aim was to implement an alphanumeric paging system. DESIGN Continuous quality improvement study using rapid-cycle change methods. SETTING General Internal Medicine (GIM) inpatient wards at 1 tertiary care academic teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS All residents, attending physicians, nurses, and allied health staff working on the general medicine (GM) wards. MEASUREMENTS We measured: (1) the proportion of pages sent as text pages, (2) the source of the pages, (3) the content of the text pages, (4) the pages that disrupted scheduled education activities, and (5) satisfaction with the alphanumeric paging system. RESULTS After implementation, 52% of pages sent from physicians or the GM wards were sent as text pages (P < 0.001). 93% of pages between physicians were text pages, compared to 27% of pages from the GM wards to physicians (P < 0.001). The most common reason for text paging among physicians was to arrange work or teaching rounds (33%). The most common reason for text paging from the GM wards was to request a patient assessment or for notification of a patient's clinical status (25%). There was a 29% reduction in disruptive pages sent during scheduled educational rounds (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS We successfully implemented an alphanumeric paging system that reduced disruptive pages on a GM inpatient service.