How to Choose an Intercom System for Clinics and Nursing Homes

Not every facility needs the exact same setup. A small clinic with 10 rooms has very different needs from a nursing home with 100 residents. Here's a practical guide to choosing an intercom system that actually fits your facility's scale and needs.

1. Start by calculating your facility's scale

A nurse console like the Fanvil A320i can handle up to 100 devices in standalone mode, which covers a small to mid-sized clinic or nursing home comfortably. For larger facilities, the system can expand with additional interconnected consoles.

2. Decide what kind of communication you actually need

• Audio only: works fine on a tighter budget and still allows two-way communication
• Audio plus video: a bedside station with a camera lets nurses visually assess a patient before showing up, especially useful in nursing homes where the nurse-to-resident ratio isn't very high

3. Think about your residents' physical needs

For a nursing home with elderly residents, consider devices with large, easy-to-reach buttons, like the Fanvil X305, an IP phone with big buttons designed for elderly users, complete with a dedicated HELP button, support for up to 10 wireless buttons, and even Braille keys for residents with vision impairments.

4. Plan out your wireless button coverage

Wireless buttons like the KT10 and KT20 have a range of 6 to 25 meters indoors depending on conditions (walls, interference). For facilities with a complex layout or thick walls, this needs to be mapped out ahead of time so there are no dead zones.

5. Don't skip the corridor display for larger facilities

For nursing homes or clinics with more than one floor or long hallways, the CMD-01 corridor display helps staff who aren't standing at the nurse console still see call status. It cuts down on the risk of a call getting missed while staff are elsewhere on the floor.

Bottom line

Start by calculating rooms and basic needs, then layer in video, bathroom emergency buttons, and corridor displays based on how complex the facility is. A modular system like FNCS lets you start with a basic setup and add components as the facility grows.