Austco Medicom Nurse Call System

Austco Medicom is a wired nurse call system designed to be simple to use, stable and good value. It suits hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centres, geriatric hospitals and long-term care facilities. Call types, priority levels, alerting methods and signal routing can all be adapted to each area.

What Austco Medicom does well

• Stable, suited to a communication system that has to run 24 hours a day
• Call types and priority levels can be customised
• Tones, colours and display formats can be set differently for each call
• Supports forwarding or escalating a call when nobody answers
• Expands to more rooms, beds and areas as the design requires
• Zones or divides responsibility between nurse stations
• Connects to telephones, pagers and alerting devices through the appropriate interface
• Monitors system and power supply faults
• Some devices are designed to be easy to wipe clean
• Silicone buttons on some models contain an antibacterial agent
• Some immersible call buttons carry an IP67 water protection rating

How it works

When a patient presses a call button, the system sends the signal with location data, such as room number, bed number and call type, to the display point or the staff member responsible. The usual sequence is:

1. The patient presses a call button at the bed, in the bathroom or at a service point
2. The over-door light or corridor lamp shows the status for that call type
3. The call appears at the nurse station or on the central display
4. The system can forward the call to telephones, pagers or connected communication devices
5. If nobody answers within the set time, the system can escalate or forward the alert to backup staff
6. The nurse reaches the area and cancels the call, or records the status of the care given

Supported call types

The system can assign priority levels and alerting formats to several call types, for example:

• Patient Call – the patient calls a nurse
• Assistance Call – a request for additional help
• Emergency Call – an emergency
• Code Blue – a medical emergency
• Toilet/Bathroom Call – a call from the bathroom
• Staff Assist – a staff member requests support
• Presence – shows that a nurse is in the room
• Equipment Alarm – receives a signal from connected medical equipment
• Cancel/Reset – cancels or resets a call

The names and number of call types can be adapted to each project's design.

Main components

1. Bedside call unit

Installed at the head of the bed to connect a handheld call button or other call devices. It can show call status and act as the point where a call is cancelled, depending on how the system is set up.

2. Handheld call button

The patient can hold it or keep it nearby to call a nurse easily. Single-button and multi-button options are available depending on the use. Some devices use materials containing an antibacterial agent and are designed to be cleaned for infection control.

3. Bathroom pull cord

Installed near the toilet or shower area so that a patient can pull for help while seated or after a fall. The cord should be installed so that it can be reached from a low position.

4. Emergency and Code Blue buttons

Used in areas that need an urgent response, such as examination rooms, emergency rooms, operating theatres, recovery rooms and critical care rooms. They can be given a tone, light colour and priority different from an ordinary call.

5. Staff presence button

Signals that a nurse or staff member is in the room. It helps distinguish when a patient is being attended to, and works together with the call cancellation process.

6. Over-door light

Shows the location and type of call through colour or flash pattern, so that staff can see the event from the corridor. A typical colour scheme is:

• Red – emergency call
• White or yellow – general patient call
• Green – staff present in the room
• Blue – a specific call type

The actual colours depend on the project's configuration and standards.

7. Corridor display

Shows text such as room number, bed, call type and priority, so that staff know where the event is without going back to the nurse counter.

8. Nurse station display

Collects and shows the calls in its area of responsibility, ordered by urgency, with different alert tones for different event types.

9. Power supply and battery back-up

The Medicom power supply includes back-up power, battery charging and monitoring, plus status lights and alarms for faults in the mains supply, the battery or the supply circuit. The system keeps running through a power cut for as long as the designed battery capacity allows.

Connecting to other systems

Medicom can be installed with interfaces or add-on platforms to connect to systems such as:

• Internal or cordless telephones
• Pagers
• Central displays
• Public address or audio systems
• Mobile alerting systems
• Building and security systems
• Alarms from medical equipment
• Event logging and response-time reporting systems

What can be connected depends on the interface, software, device model and system architecture at each hospital.

Upgrading an existing system

Medicom belongs to Austco's earlier nurse call range, sometimes called 2G or legacy, but it can still be used in a hybrid architecture with the Tacera platform acting as the centre that receives events from Medicom areas. That adds new capabilities, such as sending calls to mobile phones, reporting, integration with other systems, or upgrading ward by ward, so there is no need to replace the whole system at once.

Suitable for

• Hospitals that want a stable, basic nurse call system
• Buildings working to a controlled budget
• Clinics and rehabilitation centres
• Elderly care centres
• Projects with existing Medicom equipment that want to expand
• Hospitals that want to migrate gradually to a hybrid IP system

Note: Details such as beds per circuit, cable lengths, device models, certifications and integration capability should be confirmed from the design drawings and the technical submittal for the models proposed on each project, because Medicom exists in several versions and installation formats.