Are physician pagers an outmoded technology?

BACKGROUND: Pagers are the most commonly used method of communications in American hospitals. However, its financial cost and efficiency is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficiency of conventional hospital pagers and to estimate the financial cost of time wasted by the use of these pagers. METHODS: We conducted a survey among 100 clinicians, nurses and pharmacists in our community teaching hospital, estimating the time spent in the process of sending and responding to pages and the financial equivalent of this time, and evaluating the potential advantages of hospital-based wireless telephones compared with traditional pagers. RESULTS: A total of 70 clinicians completed the survey for a response rate of 70%. The average time spent per daytime shift in using the paging system was between 48 and 66 minutes for physicians, 120 minutes for nurses and 165 minutes for pharmacists. The financial cost of time lost for a single medical ward for one month was estimated to be $2,732-$17,250, depending on the case scenario. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that the traditional paging system is an inefficient means of communication between clinicians and hospital staff and that a switch to direct phone calls might be far more cost-effective. Similar considerations probably apply to most hospitals that still use traditional pagers.