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As part of BWH’s BluePrint celebration, BWH Bulletin features this special section to explore the past, present and future of the institution. You can find information about BluePrint, including a tool kit, milestones and events, at BWHPikeNotes.org/BluePrint. Questions? Email BWHBluePrint@partners.org.
The above story about BWH's new paging system appeared in the Sept./Oct. 1982 issue of Inside BWH.
BWH has a new Employee Alert System that enables employees to select whether they would like to receive important messages, including weather emergencies, MBTA closures and disaster situational awareness, from BWH by text message, email and/or phone call. (See related story on page 1.)
In this week's BluePrint feature, we look back at the Sept./Oct. 1982 issue of Inside Brigham and Women's Hospital, which highlights the hospital's switch from Zip-Call beepers, which used radio waves, to a new digital, "state-of-the-art" pager system.
With the move, employees transitioned from using bulky devices that acted as a one-way radio, where the page operator would alert the user to call a certain number. The newer pager system would display a five-digit number that an employee could view and call back themselves.
The new system rolled out on Nov. 2, 1982, with some 900 hospital employees using it. The system was connected to MASCO's computerized Shared Paging System, which also serviced Joslin Diabetes Center, New England Deaconess Hospital and the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute.
It was also noted in the article that by transitioning to this new pager system, the hospital would double its number of pagers.
Today, paging is conveniently done via Partners Paging Directory, which handles a massive number of pages. In Nov. 2012 alone, nearly 4.5 million pages were sent Partners HealthCare-wide-with BWH accounting for 31 percent of those pages. Many employees have helped cut the costs associated with pagers recently, opting to have pages sent to their email and cell phone via text message, instead of carrying a pager.