寻呼机不死

    全球闻名的Alta Bates Summit医疗中心位于加州伯克利，它的4,500名员工中有1,000人配有寻呼机。佩戴寻呼机已成为他们工作的一部分，就像穿着外科制服和戴着塑胶手套一样。萨特医疗集团旗下拥有众多医院，特里•施莱辛格是这家公司东湾分区的电信部经理。她对寻呼机已被历史抛弃等说法颇为不满。她将寻呼机称为“员工日常使用的通讯工具之一。”施莱辛格说：“当然，每个人都想只使用一种通讯工具，但实际工作并非如此。”

    手机信号有时无法穿通高大的混凝土建筑，医院就是其中之一。而且，一旦遇到地震等突发事件，手机很可能会无法接通。寻呼机就不一样了，它对技术的依赖要小得多。事实上，医院仍然将可靠性视为继续使用寻呼机的最大理由。毕竟，医生绝不能容忍漏接重要电话，人命关天啊。

    除了寻呼机，Alta Bates还在使用一种名为Vocera的私有内部通讯网。员工们把一种和智能手机很像的设备别在衣服上，或者挂在脖子上。他们要做的就是按下按钮，激活设备，说出自己想联系的同事的姓名（语音识别技术会进行查找），然后等待回应即可。

    Alta Bates没为员工配备智能手机。但很多人会带自己的手机来上班。施莱辛格称，这家医院正在设法改善院内的手机信号。

    分析师称，信号接收问题相对容易解决，而且这方面已经有好几年的经验。一种办法是在设施内安装所谓的蜂窝网络。它本质上是私人手机网络，以保证难以接收到信号的地方也能被覆盖到。这样，就不一定非得依靠最近的手机信号塔来提供网络覆盖。

    一般而言，Frost＆Sullivan分析师布伦特•拉达若拉称，医院在采用新技术方面往往行动缓慢。数字化病历也是一项出现了很久的技术，但很多医院一直到现在才开始使用这项技术。拉达若拉补充说，医院在采用智能手机方面动作也很迟缓。拉达若拉说：“现在还在使用寻呼机简直就跟活在中世纪一样。” （财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    At Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, in Berkeley, Calif., 1,000 out of 4,500 employees have pagers. Carrying one is as much a part of the job as wearing surgical scrubs and plastic gloves. Teri Schlessinger, telecommunications manager for the East Bay region of Sutter Health, the hospital's parent, disputed any suggestion that pagers are relics of the past. Instead, she called them just one of several communications tools employees use. "Certainly, everyone would like to just be able to depend on one device, but we can't do that," Schlessinger says.

    Cell phone signals don't necessarily reach the bowels of big concrete buildings like hospitals. Moreover, during emergencies like earthquakes, cell phone service can get overloaded. Pagers, it turns out, are far less prone to such technical problems. In fact, hospitals still cite their comparative reliability as their reason for continuing to use the technology. After all, doctors can't afford missing important calls. Patient lives are at stake.

    In addition to pagers, a private internal communication system, called Vocera, plays a key role in communications at Alta Bates. Employees are given devices resembling smartphones that they clip to their clothes or dangle from their necks. All they have to do is press a button to activate the device, say the name of the colleague they want to reach (voice recognition technology looks them up), and then wait to be connected.

    Alta Bates does not give smartphones to staff. Nevertheless, many people bring their personal phones to work. Schlessinger said the hospital is looking at ways to improve cell phone reception in the hospital.

    Reception problems are relatively easy to solve and have been for years, analysts say. One option is setting up what are called mesh networks, essentially private cell phone networks, inside facilities to guarantee coverage in hard-to-reach places. Relying on the nearest cell phone tower to provide coverage is unnecessary.

    In general, hospitals tend to be slow in adopting new technologies, says Brent Iadarola, another analyst with Frost & Sullivan. Digital medical records are another technology that has long been available, but many hospitals are only just now switching to them. With smartphones, the shift is similarly delayed, he adds. "To still be in the pager environment is to be in the Dark Ages," Iadarola says.