Case Study: WakeMed eliminates physician-nurse communication delays and improves patient care with Proficient Health's PH Connect

Eliminating Delays in Physician-Nursing Communication to Improve Patient Care

WakeMed Health and Hospitals, a 919‑bed system with nearly 3,500 nurses and 1,100 physicians, faced delays in physician–nursing communication that harmed patient satisfaction and care quality. Proficient Health’s PH Connect, already used for physician-to-physician messaging, was chosen to address issues like cellular/page dead zones, wrong paging, incorrect call schedules, and long wait times for callbacks by extending direct nurse access to providers.

Proficient Health deployed PH Connect to all nurse workstations and more than 800 shared mobile devices, giving nurses web and mobile access to direct messaging, call schedules, read receipts and message rerouting visibility. The change generated nearly 20,000 nursing messages per month, sped up communication, reduced callbacks, enabled providers to reply directly to floor nurses, and prompted broader rollout to ancillary teams (PT/OT/ST, case managers, diabetes educators, wound care), improving overall care coordination and team satisfaction.

WakeMed

Lindsey Seawell