Patent ID: 7451096

Claim:
A method for managing healthcare communication, comprising the steps of: applying predetermined search criteria in searching a plurality of sources including a clinical information system for contact information comprising telephone contact data for use in establishing communication links to personnel and patients associated with a particular healthcare worker; automatically and intermittently acquiring and sorting the contact information; automatically and intermittently acquiring workflow messages provided by a workflow management system for monitoring the progress of work and informing personnel of tasks to be performed, in response to a clinical event associated with a particular patient; incorporating the acquired and sorted contact information together with telephone contact status information in data representative of a list of contact information for said particular healthcare worker; and initiating generation of a display image using said data representative of said list of contact information for said particular healthcare worker, said display image indicating workflow messages generated by said workflow management system identifying tasks associated with said particular patient and assigned to said particular healthcare worker and telephone contact status and initiating direct voice communication with said personnel, informing said personnel of said tasks to perform identified by said workflow messages using said acquired and sorted contact information, in response to selection by said particular healthcare worker of an image element in said display image.