Westmead Hospital, one of Sydney’s largest public hospitals, has a team of over 40 orderlies who perform over 100 thousand tasks per year. For the past three decades the recording of these tasks has been a paper-based process, and while this has been a well tried and used method, time for new technology was needed to take this to a new level of performance and reporting. In 2016 Westmead Hospital installed and deployed a Motorola DMR system servicing security, maintenance and general operations. Along with this, TRBOnet software was also employed for many functions and it soon came to light that using the Job Ticketing module the paper-based process could be replicated, thus allowing for concise reporting such as time taken to accept the task, time taken to perform the task and more importantly, the ability to live track the task process and then retrieve any historical data easily. The orderlies now carry a Motorola SL4010 DMR portable that is used to receive, acknowledge and complete the tasks assigned and has the added bonus that it is a radio as well, allowing them to have direct access back to the dispatcher rather than looking for the closest phone to make contact.
