Case Study: St. Thomas‑Elgin General Hospital achieves faster ED‑to‑bed admissions and improved staff efficiency with Stryker (Vocera)

St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital Improves Patient Flow and Increases Staff Efficiency with Vocera Voice and Vocera Messaging

St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital (STEGH), a 166-bed community hospital in Ontario with more than 800 staff and roughly 42,000 annual ED visits, faced a critical operational challenge: improve patient flow and staff efficiency so clinicians spend 80% of their time at the bedside and ED patients who need admission are placed in a bed within 60 minutes. Unreliable overhead paging left housekeeping unaware of discharge/transfer status, slowing bed turnover and threatening those performance goals.

STEGH replaced paging with Vocera Voice and Vocera Messaging integrated with Cerner and the Medworxx Bed Board, delivering real-time alerts to wearable Vocera badges and enabling instant verbal responses from housekeepers. The integration shortened bed-cleaning times, streamlined workflows across nursing, respiratory therapy, maintenance and security, improved admission-to-bed and discharge times, boosted patient satisfaction, and helped the hospital meet its 60-minute admit objective while increasing direct care time for clinicians.

St. Thomas-Elgin General Hospital

Jen Hilt

Clinical Informatics Specialist