The figure delineates the organized and hierarchal group communication within a COVID-19 department comprising one unit using EX-TEAMS™. The same set-up can be applied to more than one patient care unit within the department. The EX-TEAMS communication network enables communication between the medical staff within the unit (black arrows). The intensive care unit’s MD (ICU MD) and RN (ICU RN) move between the control center and the units, according to clinical needs or get a real time consultation (blue arrows) from within the infected environment (dash-dots blue line) from their colleagues in the control and command center located in a sterile and safe environment (dashed purple line). Each person in the unit, working within the infected environment can also communicate with a hospital management representative (purple box) in the department level control and command center. For every employee in each unit, a location-based system allows calling into action the emergency team and helps them navigate to the exact location where they are needed (orange arrows). In addition, the system allows in-person communication with the paramedical services outside of ExTeams (not shown).

ICU, intensive care unit; MD, medical doctor; Mngmnt., management; Rep., representative; RN, registered nurse; LPN, licensed practical nurse.