traditional communication systems
Familiar isn't the same as reliable
Pagers and DECT phones have been the default for forty years because they’re familiar, not because they’re reliable or efficient. The limitation isn’t how staff use them; it’s the technology itself.
Pagers only go one way. They send a number into the void and forget it. No one knows whether the message landed, whether the right person received it or whether anyone acted. As a result, around a third of pager messages are never even acknowledged.*
Teams compensate for what pagers can’t do with handwritten notes, inaccurate paper rosters, group chats, SMS and WhatsApp. Every layer adds delay and requires further clarification, creating another place for a request to go missing and another channel with no record.
~33%
of pager messages are never even acknowledged.
*Wu et al., The intended and unintended consequences of communication systems in general internal medicine inpatient care delivery (2013)
Medtasker is structured
Every message becomes a task, not a number
Medtasker turns every message into a structured task that can carry real-time patient details, location and priority. It routes to the role that’s actually on shift and stays visible from creation to completion.
Structured task management is at Medtasker’s core:
Two way – The sender sees the request was received and is being actioned in real time. No calling back or re-paging to check, and you can easily message within the chat to get extra information or provide an update.
Reaches the right person, first time – A live on-duty directory routes each request to whoever is rostered on for that role.
Live insights – Real-time workload visibility replaces the uncertainty of paging. Get clear insight into each team member’s activity, enabling teams to manage demand, response times and requestor expectations.
Fits in with patient care – A pager demands attention the instant it sounds. A request on Medtasker arrives with priority and context attached, so clinicians can immediately identify what’s genuinely urgent without disrupting care.
The difference
Pager vs Medtasker
Pager
One-way — send and hope
A number to call back
Tied to a device, not a person
Fails silently
Interrupts the instant it sounds
Leaves no record
A record of every action, every task
Pagers forget. Medtasker remembers.
Medtasker keeps a record of every action involved in the completion of every task. It replaces pagers across the hospital, not just for one team.
Reminders and escalation
If a task isn’t acknowledged, Medtasker sends a reminder before automatically escalating it along your hospital’s configured pathways.
Full audit trail
Every request is time-stamped and traceable from request to completion, providing a complete record for audit and incident review.
Reporting
Medtasker turns task activity into operational data, helping hospitals understand demand and workload to support better resource planning.
Proven in practise
Real outcomes
Hospitals across Australia and New Zealand are already using Medtasker to modernise communication and task management.
“It’s [Medtasker] absolutely brilliant. The rollout has been seamless. Our medical staff enjoy greater visibility of patient referrals and more streamlined collaboration between departments within the hospital. I couldn’t be happier.”
Dr Paul MacIntyre – Clinical Director of Acute Medical Services, Royal Hobart Hospital
Health New Zealand
Northern region has removed pagers for all staff, including those used for critical event response across eight hospitals.
Northern Health
Achieved a 90% reduction in after-hours calls to switchboard, with 89% of automated reminders acknowledged within 3 minutes.
Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network
After-hours requests now flow through one channel, replacing pagers, phone calls and handwritten notes.
Royal Hobart Hospital
ED staff can bypass switchboard and reach the right inpatient clinician directly, without chasing callbacks through paper rosters.
Built for adoption
Switch with confidence
Medtasker runs alongside the systems you already have, integrating with your EMR, Patient Administration System and Active Directory. Staff are productive after 5 to 10 minutes of training, allowing hospitals to reach full adoption quickly.
On reliability, Medtasker alerts cut through a phone’s silent mode for time-critical requests. They also escalate automatically if not acknowledged and confirm back to the sender that they landed. That’s the opposite of a pager, where a message can fail and no one ever knows.
Connecting teams and workflows
More than a pager replacement
Replacing pagers is just the starting point.
Medtasker connects communication, tasks and workflows across the hospital, giving teams one reliable way to coordinate.
Task Management
Manage tasks across
the whole hospital
Leader & Executives
See what’s happening
across your hospital
Emergency Code Response
Reliable coordination
for critical events
IT & Digital
Integrate with existing
hospital systems
Frequently asked questions
Will an alert reach staff as reliably as a pager?
Medtasker alerts reach staff reliably, with confirmation a pager can’t give. Time-critical alerts cut through a phone’s silent and do-not-disturb settings, so they reach staff during critical events. Unlike a pager, the sender can see the request was received and is being actioned, so a message never fails silently.
Do staff need new devices, or does Medtasker run on their own phones?
Medtasker runs on the devices staff already use, including personal phones, hospital-issued phones, tablets and ward computers. There’s no dedicated pager-style hardware to buy, issue, lose or maintain. Each hospital chooses the device approach that suits its security and BYOD policies.
Can Medtasker replace pagers across our entire hospital?
Medtasker covers the full range of pager-based work, including after-hours tasking, Emergency Code Response, allied health, pharmacy and non-clinical jobs. Some hospitals retire pagers entirely; others keep a small number for specific contingencies and run everything else through Medtasker. Where a system like nurse call stays in place, Medtasker integrates with it rather than replacing it.
What happens if no one responds to a request?
Medtasker escalates it. Each hospital configures its own pathways, which can differ by ward, task type and time of day. Nothing depends on a clinician remembering to chase a missed page; Medtasker carries the request forward and records every step.
How do we move off pagers without disrupting the hospital?
Deployment is staged. Most health services start with one or two modules (e.g. After-Hours Clinical Coordination to tackle new hospital workflow design). After proving value in these key areas, usage expands as other teams also want to use the system. Implementation timelines depend on scope, commissioning of technology and change management within the health service. Medtasker’s delivery and support team is Australasia-based, with no offshoring.
Is the communication in Medtasker secure and recorded?
Every request in Medtasker is captured, including sender, recipient, timestamps and acknowledgements, compared with no record at all from a pager. That full audit trail supports incident review and compliance. Medtasker also removes the need for unauthorised channels like SMS and WhatsApp.
What happens if there is no Wi-Fi or mobile coverage?
Medtasker can operate over Wi-Fi only or support both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, depending on your environment. If connectivity is temporarily unavailable, tasks are queued and delivered when the device reconnects. For time-critical workflows, configured escalation pathways help ensure requests continue to be managed.
Find out how Medtasker can replace pagers in your health service
The fastest way to understand how Medtasker can replace pagers in your organisation is a conversation.
Talk us through your organisation’s priorities and we’ll explain how Medtasker has helped hospitals like yours.
