Ramsay Health Care Standardise at 2222 in NSW at a cost of A$250 per Hospital
The 2222 initiative has been adopted by Ramsay Health Care (RHC) and the changeover of existing internal emergency numbers commenced in March 2019. The plan has been to make the change across all RHC facilities using a state by state approach starting in NSW. In scope are those facilities that have an existing internal emergency number and associated protocol and out of scope are those facilities that are too small (single ward or similar) to warrant the change as their protocols are supported by “emergency buzzer” only.
The initial pilot phase consisted of four RHC facilities in NSW, namely North Shore, Westmead, St George and Wollongong Private hospitals. This work was completed successfully and without incident in May 2019. Following on from the pilot the sites, the remaining NSW Ramsay facilities adopted 2222 and this work was completed on August 14, again without incident. To date 9 RHC facilities have made the change to 2222
To oversee the work a dedicated 2222 Working Party was formed that included key clinical, quality, risk and IT personnel. The term “Twenty Two. Twenty Two” has been adopted for ease of verbalising!
Essentially the project focussed on two key areas,
1. Change management – printed and electronic resources and education requirements
2. IT – PABX vendors and reprogramming to accept 2222 and to retain the old number as an “alias”.
Key tasks related to the above were to;
– identify where the existing emergency number was displayed
– document the need for reprinting and/or alteration to existing displays
– identify marketing requirements
– Identify education requirements
– identify communications requirements
– establish risks and mitigation strategies
– mandate the need for retention of existing numbers as an “alias” for a period of 12 months to eliminate the risk of missed calls due to human recall errors and maintain patient safety.
– liaise with PABX vendors to obtain quotes for reprogramming of PABX equipment and establish dates for reprogramming
– identify a suitable single go live date for all facilities
– track the number of calls at each site pre and post changeover
The 2222 Working Party provided a Marketing pack of posters and stickers to manage visual displays. Stickers were placed over existing old number displays on any printed resources and were also placed on phone handsets and emergency procedure flip charts. This kept reprinting costs to a minimum and prevented any unnecessary “search and destroy” approaches to large volumes of expensive printed stock such as track and trigger charts. The master file for these resources is being altered for the next print run to display 2222. The working Party also provided a communications pack with general information for staff as well as standard communications templates for memos and general correspondence and emails at a site level. This allowed for a standardised message as well as reduced preparatory work for Hospital Executive in communicating and overseeing the change to 2222 locally.
To date the PABX vendor cost per site for the reprogramming of hospital PABX systems has been between $250:00 and $450.00 AUS. This is a one off cost. Site disruption of services has not been an issue and in most cases PABX vendors have been able to reprogramme PABX systems to accept 2222 remotely whilst retaining the old numbers as an “alias”. As mentioned the “alias” is retained for 12 months from the go live date and each site is responsible for liaising with their PABX vendor at 12 moths post go live date to delete the alias.
I am about to commence the changeover to 2222 in our Queensland Hospitals followed by Victoria later in the year. We are awaiting an announcement from WA Health about standardising 2222 in WA public facilities. Given that RHC has co-located facilities in WA it prudent to wait for a state-wide change to 2222 in order to prevent confusion, reduce human error and optimise patient safety.