October 29, 2019

Pager swaps to take place at One Hundred Oaks, Oct. 29-31

Over the last few months, Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has been updating its systems for clinical communications (texting and paging). These changes have been necessary to ensure that we comply with updated guidelines from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), which specify that all pages and texts containing protected health information (PHI) must be encrypted.  

As part of this update, VUMC is now transitioning to secure, encrypted pager technology.

VUMC’s paging vendor, American Messaging Systems (AMS), is working with us to update our infrastructure and devices, and will have staff on-site to help collect old pagers and distribute new ones.

To help with the pager swap process, AMS will be on location in One Hundred Oaks. You will need to stop by the service desk to:

  1. Turn in your existing pager (if your pager is lost, please let the AMS team know)
  2. If necessary, receive an encrypted pager

The team will be available:

One Hundred Oaks (Room 26114)

Oct. 29-31

8 a.m. – 5 p.m.  

The entire pager swap process should take approximately one to two minutes.

If you cannot stop by the service desk during this time period, you can visit the AMS office in Medical Center North at any time during regular business hours.

AMS Office

D-2103 MCN
Hours are 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Monday – Friday
x2-6477
Shelley.Moore@americanmessaging.net

Clinicians now have three options for receiving clinical pages—which option you choose will depend on your preferences and workflow requirements:

1. MH-CURE Only

Appropriate for clinicians who:

  • See patients in locations without WiFi or connectivity issues (e.g., main VUMC campus or VUMC clinics)
  • Do not want to carry a pager
  • Already forward their pager to personal device

2. MH-CURE and Pager

Appropriate for clinicians who:

  • See patients at off-site locations (e.g., Stallworth, the VA, etc.)
  • See patients in locations with Wi-Fi / cellular data connectivity challenges
  • Are on-call in locations with WiFi / cellular data connectivity challenges
  • Have workflow or training requirements that necessitate carrying of pager (residents and fellows fall into this category)

3. Pager Only

Appropriate for clinicians who:

  • Do not want to install MH-CURE on their personal devices (note: forwarding of pagers to personal devices will be disabled once pager swap program is complete)
  • Will not use SMS messaging to send text messages containing PHI (note: MH-CURE is the only approved tool for texting of PHI)

Please note the following:

  • MH-CURE on personal devices is not yet available for non-clinicians; non-clinicians will continue to carry a pager
  • Paging workflows will not change.
  • Numbers for existing pagers will be transferred to the new encrypted device.
  • At the end of the pager exchange program, forwarding of pages to mobile devices via SMS will be discontinued and all remaining unencrypted pagers will be disabled.
  • All pages sent through AMS will also be delivered via MH-CURE. This change ensures that a page sent through eStar paging or Synergy, for example, will still be securely delivered. 

More information is available at https://www.vumc.org/enterprisecybersecurity/encryptedpagers.