They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery.  If this is true, then West-Com is truly flattered by the recent attempts of our competitors to copy West-Com’s intellectual property in an effort to make their systems almost as good as ours. As the industry leader, West-Com has grown accustomed to our competition copying our leadership ideas. For example, West-Com was a leader in quality “true duplex” audio. We are still waiting for the competition to catch up with us. 

Over ten years ago West-Com introduced our “Direct Request®” feature by which a patient could place a request for “pain med” and “bed pan”  thus allowing over 78% of all patient calls to be automatically dispatched to the proper level of staff in less than three minutes.  Although West-Com trademarked this feature our market intelligence informs us that our competition has a battery of attorneys trying to find a way to get around our trademarks so they can do what West-Com does.  Once again, West-Com is “Revolutionizing the Patient Care Environment®” Of course, these same competitors were telling customers that West-Com’s idea of using a full computer for the nurse call master and offering “open” technology in place of “proprietary “ technology, which again shows that West-Com was right.

Now, West-Com is happy to introduce two new “patent pending” features:

• i-Dome and i-Status stations which are conveniently installed outside each patient room to indicate patient status such as “potential fall risk,” “pain med assessment” reminder, suicide watch, room status, chart ready, etc.  And, it meets HIPPA requirements for patient confidentiality.
  
• West-Com is happy to announce our new one gang bathroom assist/emergency pull station.  In the past when a patient was placed in the bathroom they were told to “pull the cord” when you are ready to come out.  This worked OK until we started interfacing wireless devices to the nurse call system.  Now, with the wireless interface, if the emergency cord is pulled, every staff member on the floor is alerted to a potential emergency situation.  With West-Com’s new assist/emergency station, the patient simply presses the assist button for assistance or, pulls the emergency cord for an emergency situation, thus preventing false emergency calls from being placed and causing unnecessary and costly staff emergency alert situations.

Once again, West-Com is listening and “Revolutionizing the Patient Care Environment.”

Now, when your facility is looking for a new nurse call system, ask yourself, “Do I want to deal with the innovative company that is the leader in nurse call innovation,” or do I want to deal with a nurse call company that follows the leader and copies other company’s ideas.

For more information and a demonstration of the latest thinking in nurse call features, call West-Com Nurse Call Systems Inc.

Sincerely,

C. Larry Peters
Chief Executive Officer