Recently, I was privileged to be part of a workflow redesign team for a 75-bed ECC at one of our hospitals. The department had assembled a 20-person cross-functional team to streamline the ECC intake process. Their goal was to improve patient satisfaction scores by improving the time from patient arrival to head-in-bed, with a target goal of 30 minutes.

Because Voalté was being introduced into the department around the same time, we were invited to observe and provide insight into how our communication flow could assist with the project. One specific conversation caught my attention. One of the participants asked “Well, couldn’t we just Voalté them for that?” The others nodded slowly as they turned to me for assurance. “Voalté them?” I was surprised by the choice of words. Before I could answer, another person interjected “Oh yeah. We have Voalté on our floor and we Voalté them every time we have an XYZ problem.” 

What caught me off guard wasn’t the use-model or the problem they were trying to solve with Voalté - it was their use of “Voalté” as a verb. After this encounter, I felt like I heard the same thing at every hospital I visited. I took part in a go-live recently, and within days of using the system, staff members were saying things like “Don’t worry, I’ll Voalté you” and “Please hold while I Voalté that nurse.” How does such a term enter the nurse’s lexicon so quickly?

The only reasonable explanation is that this solution quickly becomes the default form of communication within the hospital almost in the same way that “Google” has come to mean “to search for something on a search engine.” By no means am I trying to compare Voalté to the size or success of Google, but like Google, we’ve chosen a niche problem (Google with search, Voalté with communication) and spent countless hours making it very simple to use. The result is a tool that becomes invaluable to the caregiver’s daily workflow. The fact that Voalté - the noun - enabled that workflow then becomes an afterthought.

Unlike Google, I think everyone at Voalté welcomes this phenomenon. For us, the transformation of the word implies widespread value within the hospital and therefore marks a milestone. It’s another sign that we’re accomplishing the goal set forth in our mission statement: 

BETTER COMMUNICATION MEANS BETTER CAREGIVERS