Today, we have multiple communication channels available, yet some healthcare organizations struggle with providing effective communication options for their employees, which can lead to loss of valuable time and can even lead to loss of life. Here enters Vocera Communications, Inc., with the mission of simplifying communication and improving healthcare experiences for patients, families and care teams, while enhancing quality of care, safety and operational efficiency. In addition to serving healthcare facilities, the company is also present in luxury hotels, nuclear facilities, libraries, retail stores, and more, making a difference where employees are highly mobile. To date, more than 1,400 hospitals and health systems around the globe have selected Vocera solutions to reduce alarm fatigue, speed up staff response time, and improve patient care, experience, and safety.
The Dream Journey
Vocera was founded in 2000 in San Jose, Calif., by three entrepreneurs with the hope of creating a better way of communicating with fellow employees. The concept of a hands-free, wireless device known as the Vocera Communication Badge was created out of the need to ask an individual or group a time-sensitive question and get a response immediately. These innovators built a simple solution that provided instant communication of messages before text messaging existed. This wearable device eventually helped make teamwork far more efficient and seamless and set the pace for the company’s mission and vision. Today, the Vocera portfolio has grown from the hands-free badge to an enterprise communication and collaboration platform that includes smartphone applications, secure text messaging, alarm management and analytics, patient, family and staff engagement tools, and interoperability with more than 120 clinical systems, including electronic health records, nurse call, ventilators, physiologic monitors, and more. Within 17 years, Vocera has grown from a small start-up into a publicly-traded company with revenues exceeding $120 million, more than 500 hundred employees in nearly 10 countries, and thousands of installations in healthcare, hospitality and energy industries around the world.
A Visionary Leader and An Agent of Change
Brent Lang, CEO of Vocera Communications, Inc. has been a visionary leader and a change agent in healthcare technology for nearly two decades. Serving in high-level positions within Vocera since 2001, Brent has played a pivotal role in transforming the Silicon Valley startup to a publicly-traded, international corporation. In 2012, while serving as COO of Vocera, he was a key member of the team that led the company through its successful initial public offering (IPO).
Over the years, Brent has led the company through various product launches, acquisitions of five companies and continuous expansion into global health markets. In October 2016, Brent led the acquisition of Extension Healthcare, which helped extend the power of the Vocera communication platform for hospitals and health systems seeking one partner to improve care team communication and workflows.
Brent has a keen eye for identifying industry trends and driving innovations that help improve care team communication, collaboration, and experience. Brent holds a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. As a gold medalist swimmer in the 1988 Olympics, Brent has always led with a winning mentality and a drive for success. His professional and personal accomplishments have resulted in several accolades. In 2016, he was named as an EY Entrepreneur of The Year® Award Finalist in the Northern California Region. In 2015, he was presented with the prestigious NCAA Silver Anniversary Award, and in 2014 he earned the Visionary CEO World Award.
Impacting Treatment in a Positive Way
Vocera solutions have made a significant impact on the lives of patients, families and care teams around the globe. At Birmingham Children’s Hospital in the United Kingdom, Vocera technology helped the hospital improve staff response times in the pediatric intensive care unit. Communication to bedside nurses dropped from 60 seconds to 10 seconds, and from 2 minutes to 9 seconds for roaming staff with Vocera technology. In addition, the time required to connect incoming phone calls to staff fell by two-thirds.
In the neonatal intensive care unit at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia, integration between the hospital’s real-time location system and the Vocera alarm management solution helped reduce patient care interruptions by 54 percent. The alarm management system also helped improve nurse satisfaction by reducing secondary alerts sounding while treating infants. Reducing disruptions and noise from alerts also helped create a more healing environment for the babies.
Providing Unique Solutions in Critical Environments
Vocera solutions help highly mobile teams in various critical environments connect faster and improve operational efficiency. Vocera is unique in the markets it serves as it gives mobile workers flexibility, security and options to choose a communication device that meets their needs — be it a smartphone, landline, tablet, personal computer or a hands-free, voice-activated badge. In addition to delivering technology solutions, the company provides communication assessments and collaborative services to help customers identify potential gaps in communication to improve workflows and efficiency.
Tackling the Competitions
Only Vocera offers an enterprise-class solution that includes unique hands-free voice communication, secure texting, alerting, alarm management and patient management tools in a single communication platform that also integrates with more than 120 clinical systems. With certifications from U.S. Army and U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the company has brilliant security credentials.
Vocera has also earned several awards for its solutions and their impact on health systems. Most recently, the company made the Forbes 100 Most Trustworthy Companies in America list, the 2017 IDC Health Insights HealthTech Rankings Top 50, and The Healthcare Informatics 100.
According to Vocera, organizations want to do business with a company they can trust and on whom they can count on to be a long-time partner with a similar mission to improve the lives of the people they serve. Recognition by analysts, prestigious organizations and publications also helps build brand awareness and strengthen the company’s position in a competitive market.
Picture of a Bright Future
Vocera is defining the future of caring and delivering solutions that improve the way people connect, communicate and collaborate. Vocera will continue to serve its customers with its innovative technology with the aim of improving costs, quality, patient, and healthcare employee experience. Recognizing that organizations around the world are facing similar communications challenges, Vocera is planning to expand its presence around the globe.
