Nurse call systems for aged care and hospitals
Managed like infrastructure, because it is
Nurse call systems are the one piece of clinical technology that runs on structured cabling, speaks SNMP and never gets switched off. Ericom installs Advance Care IP into occupied aged care and hospital sites, replaces the legacy system room by room, and then monitors it the way we monitor everything else in the building.
What it became
Nurse call stopped being a clinical appliance some time ago. Most procurement has not caught up, and the gap is where the cost sits.
- A clinical appliance, installed by a clinical vendor
- IP infrastructure that happens to carry clinical calls
- Its own proprietary cable plant
- Structured cabling with industry standard connectors
- Commissioned once, then left alone until it fails
- Syslog and SNMP traps, monitored with everything else in the building
- Rewire the room when a resident's care needs change
- Low care upgrades to high care without rewiring
Nobody moves out
The building is full. That is the constraint every other decision bends around, and it is why nurse call replacement is unlike any other infrastructure project in a care setting.
A legacy system reaches the point where parts are scarce, faults are intermittent and reporting is thin. None of that justifies decanting residents, closing a wing or running a facility on paper for a fortnight. Meanwhile the failure that matters is not the system going dark. It is the single call that does not arrive, in a building where nobody knew it was raised.
So the question is never really which system. It is whether the people installing it can work around occupied rooms, cut over in stages, and leave the old system carrying the load until the new one is proven.
What gets installed
A standard facility build. Room counts and sensor density vary with the care model, but the shape does not.
Per facility 8
- Advance Care nurse call controller
- Statistics and reporting server, on UPS
- 40 amp battery backup
- Long range wireless receiver-repeaters
- Local pager system, including ten pagers
- 14 character LED annunciators
- Common call and staff assist points
- New hardwired cable infrastructure throughout
Per room 7
- One hardwired call point beside the bed, with wired pendant
- One hardwired staff assist point beside the door
- Two wireless call points in the ensuite
- One RTLS wireless pendant
- Wireless bed sensor, one per four rooms or as required
- Wireless chair sensor, one per four rooms or as required
- Floor and other sensors where specified
Indicative of a standard residential aged care facility. Hospital and high-care configurations are scoped from the floor plan.
The platform
- Platform
- Advance Care IP, designed in Australia
- Hardwired call points
- Up to 6,750
- Wireless call points
- Up to 1,000
- RTLS devices
- Up to 5,000
- Battery backup per node
- 40 to 100 amp hours
- Interface
- Web based, with role based permissions and audit trails
- Over door lights
- Full colour LED
- Annunciators
- Smart LCD
- Diagnostics
- Syslog and SNMP traps
- Cabling
- Structured cabling, industry standard connectors
Cutting over a live building
The new head end goes in alongside the system still running. Nothing is removed until the replacement is carrying calls.
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Survey and design
The floor plan, the existing cable plant and the care model. Room counts, sensor density and annunciator placement come out of the building rather than a template.
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Head end alongside
The new controller, reporting server and backup go in while the legacy system keeps running. No wing loses coverage to make room for the replacement.
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Cut over in stages
Rooms move across in groups, each proven before the next begins. Where a legacy head end has to stay in service for a period, the new system interfaces to it rather than replacing it overnight.
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Seven days of hypercare
Day one support on site, when the calls are real and the staff are learning the system at the same time.
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Train the trainer
User, management and maintenance training delivered on site, structured so your own staff can bring new people up without waiting on us.
Not over Wi-Fi
A resident pressing a button is not a packet that can wait for a retry. Ericom's position is that nurse call does not run over Wi-Fi. It runs on its own structured cabling and its own site-wide RF, so a call for help never depends on a wireless network that was designed for laptops and is being upgraded by somebody else.
What we do and do not do
What it does
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Design, install and commission
Advance Care IP hardware and software, configured, cut over and commissioned, with test results recorded on site.
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The cabling underneath it
New hardwired infrastructure installed to ACMA cabling requirements by our own team, not subcontracted to whoever is available.
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Replace legacy systems in place
Ageing analogue and proprietary systems replaced while the facility stays open, including interfacing to an existing head end where a staged replacement demands it.
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Real time location
Pendants, bed, chair and floor sensors, and staff duress, on the same platform as the call points rather than as a second system to manage.
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Hand over the evidence
Commissioning and test records, completion certificates and as-built documentation, because in five years that paperwork is the only thing that can answer the question.
What it does not do
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We install one platform
Advance Care IP. We are not a multi-vendor nurse call integrator, and if you are committed to another manufacturer we are the wrong call, and better to know now than after a site survey.
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We do not run it over Wi-Fi
If your requirement is a wireless-only system riding your existing Wi-Fi, that is a different product from a different supplier.
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We do not set your care policy
Escalation paths, response expectations and who carries which pager are configured to your model of care. We build what you decide.
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We do not quote from a floor plan alone
A price without a site survey is a guess that gets corrected later as a variation. Every scope starts on site.
Common questions
Which system do you install?
Advance Care IP, and only that. Ericom is listed as a reseller on Advance Care's own distributor page, and we work directly with the manufacturer, whose head office, development and quality assurance are in Perth.
Single platform is a deliberate position rather than a limitation. A team that installs one system knows its failure modes, carries the right spares and does not relearn the commissioning process on your building.
Can you do this without moving residents out?
Yes, and it is the normal case. The new head end is installed alongside the system still running, and rooms cut across in stages with each group proven before the next starts. Where a legacy head end has to stay in service through the transition, the new system interfaces to it rather than forcing an overnight switch.
What standards does it meet?
Systems are designed to AS 3811, the Australian standard for hard-wired patient alarm systems, and all cabling is installed to ACMA requirements. Commissioning results are measured on site and recorded, and completion certificates are issued at handover.
Why does it matter that it speaks SNMP?
Because it changes who can look after it. A traditional nurse call installer commissions the system and leaves; the next anyone hears of it is when something has already failed.
Advance Care IP emits Syslog and SNMP traps, which means it can be monitored by the same service desk that watches your servers, switches and network. Ericom is a managed IT provider first. Nurse call is one of the few clinical systems where that is the relevant qualification.
What happens when a resident moves from low care to high care?
The room upgrades without rewiring. That is a property of the platform and it is worth more than it sounds. The alternative is trades back in an occupied room every time somebody's needs change, which is both the disruption and the cost that facilities feel over a system's life.
How big can it scale?
Advance Care publish the platform as supporting up to 6,750 hardwired call points, 1,000 wireless call points and 5,000 RTLS devices, with 40 to 100 amp hours of battery backup per node. Those are the manufacturer's figures. In practice a residential aged care facility uses a small fraction of them, and a multi-site programme is a series of independent facility systems with common reporting rather than one system stretched across a campus.
What is covered after handover?
An as-built defect and liability warranty covers the core system, cabling and peripherals for the first twelve months of operation. Ongoing maintenance is a separate agreement, scoped per site.
Start with the building
Nurse call is scoped from the floor plan, the existing cable plant and the care model, not from a brochure. A site survey comes before any number.
Request a site survey