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AcceptWhy Paging Remains at the Core of Healthcare Communications
Paging software has long been the cornerstone of clinical mobile communications. Even today, no mobile communication technology is more reliable, survivable, and affordable than the healthcare pager.
In recent years, smartphones and tablets have become an integral part of our daily lives. But even as mobile usage increases, paging’s survivable architecture and cost effectiveness retains clear advantages over cellular in many instances. Today, Spok has the nation’s largest paging network, serving industries like healthcare where communication is paramount.
Paging physicians and nurses has never been easier thanks to today’s advanced healthcare paging software.
Paging Remains Relevant Video
Paging Can Complement Secure Text Messaging
Many healthcare systems today integrate pagers into their workflows and secure communications along with smartphones.
Spok Mobile® is an intuitive secure messaging app that links to a powerful clinical communication platform. You can access your hospital’s full directory of accurate contact information; send secure text messages, images, and videos to smartphones and other devices; and ensure critical communications are logged—all with security, traceability, and reliability in mind.
Smartphones can work together with pagers. When hospitals evaluate communication technology, finding a partner that offers the ability to send messages to a variety of devices is key.
Key Features of Spok Mobile:
- Secure receipt of page messages
- Delivery receipts, response capabilities, and audit trail
- Separate inbox
- Wireless Messaging Engine (WME) group messages
- Messages on both pager and smartphone
- Hosted solution – no hardware to install
Spok: Unrivaled Paging Network Video
Discover Why Pagers Are Reliable and Flexible
Wide-area paging signals will penetrate through concrete and steel when a mobile phone signal may not. In addition, pagers:
- Allow staff to share devices, especially valuable for code teams
- Receive alarm notifications
- Are durable, a benefit for professions that are harder on devices
- Work when other technologies fail
- Are powered by batteries that can be replaced during a power outage
- Provide encrypted paging for HIPAA compliance
- Are cost-effective
Spok Offers Several Cost-Effective Paging Software Solutions
We’re proud to operate the largest one-way paging and advanced two-way paging network in the U.S. We work with organizations every day to help ensure their teams can communicate during any type of emergency, from code calls to disaster scenarios.
Clinical Communications
How to Improve Clinical Communications with One Unified Healthcare Technology Platform
What’s the Difference Between Wide-area and Onsite Paging?
- With wide-area paging, the transmitter towers provide service to all pagers in the area
- Onsite paging means that the transmitters and terminals operate within a campus environment and function as a standalone paging system where devices work just at that location
Pagers Are Known for Their Unbeatable Security and Encryption
Did you know there are options for encrypted paging, including one-way and two-way encrypted pagers?
Spok offers the exclusive T5 pager, one of only a few pagers that offers this critical capability. This means protected health information (PHI) can be shared among staff on pagers and smartphones seamlessly.
The T5 (one-way paging) and T52 (two-way paging) are among only a few wireless pagers now available that offer encrypted paging. With secure messaging capabilities and display-lock security features, these devices provide powerful tools for healthcare and emergency response communication.
Five Reasons Hospitals Value Encrypted Pagers
Send Messages as You Always Have
Device diversity is a powerful approach to effective, enterprise-wide communications.
Many hospitals are maintaining their paging systems while adding other device types to the mix. Truly effective enterprise-wide communications need to send various staff members a single message and have it received on whichever mobile device they carry.
Hospitals need a communication approach that supports their workflows. Smartphones and other devices can work together with pagers, as both can receive alerts from patient monitoring, nurse call, and other communication systems.
Having a communication system in place that can send messages to all team members regardless of the devices being used helps in effective care coordination at every step.
Not Everyone Needs a Smartphone to Do Their Job
Effective care coordination relies on a communication system that can send messages to all team members regardless of the devices being used. Even physicians who may use their smartphones for some applications may still use pagers for workflow preferences such as being on call.
Andrew J. Geoghegan talks about the hundreds of messages their hospital sends seamlessly to pagers every day.
Read how Franklin Hospital uses paging and clinical alerting solutions>
Pat Black shares why pagers remain a useful part of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s device mix during emergency situations.
Learn about pager misconceptions and what’s fact or fiction>
Paging Delivers Reliable Communications When Disaster Strikes
Sixty-seven percent of CISOs believe a cybersecurity attack will happen to their organization (Ponemon Institute). This has healthcare leaders on high alert. To ensure your organization can withstand a disaster scenario, it’s imperative to review business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
Pagers have a demonstrated reliability in disaster situations and should be an integral part of your plan. Even if the power is out and Wi-Fi and cellular networks are down, AA battery-powered pagers mean it’s easy to remain operational and function independently of the power grid without needing to recharge.
Cellular networks have a well-documented history of failing in emergency scenarios. Why do they congest and fail?
- Cellular networks are a mobile consumer and enterprise business
- The infrastructure was not designed to handle the amount of congestion that occurs during a disaster
- There is a well-documented history of cellular networks failing in emergency response scenarios
In these crisis scenarios, congestion rendered cellular phones nearly useless for emergency responders.
- 9/11 in 2001
- Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007
- Virginia’s 5.8 magnitude earthquake in 2011
- Boston Marathon bombing in 2013
- California’s deadly wildfires in 2017
- Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria in 2017
"We are often asked “Why pagers?” It’s true they have been around for many, many years; however, during 9/11 and severe storms such as Hurricane Sandy, cell phone coverage in New York was intermittent, yet paging stayed up and we were able to keep our communications open. "
–Pat Black, Manager of Telecom Operations Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Case Study: The Enduring Value of Paging
Read how Memorial Sloan and Sentara Healthcare rely on paging to prepare for the unexpected>
Your Partner for Paging in Healthcare
Download our paging brochure to compare options available with Spok>
Paging is Part of Spok Care Connect®
The Spok Care Connect platform integrates with existing workflows in your hospital. From the contact center to the patient’s bedside, Spok Care Connect links directory details, on-call schedules, staff preferences, paging, secure texting, and a lot more.
How Does Spok Paging Work?
- Paging technology is 100 percent digital—not analog
- Spok has replaced all Glenayre GL3000 terminals and encoders software with paging terminals that support off-the-shelf hardware, extending the life of the paging network well into the future
- Spok owns Glenayre IP and software source code so we are the only paging carrier capable of using this hardware
- We use multiple satellites with transmitter sites configured in a checkerboard pattern for redundancy
- Two-way satellite terminals (VSAT) with full alarming capability to the Spok Technology Operations Center
Nation’s largest paging coverage footprint
Multiple nationwide frequencies
