Skip to content
WelcoYour alerts, by text.

Nurse call alarm texts and equipment alerts for care staff

When a med fridge drifts warm at 2 a.m., the night supervisor should hear about it before the vials are lost. Welco texts a copy of the alarm emails your systems already send to the staff who cover them. Residents and patients never get texts, and nurse call stays the main alarm.

Text me my building alarmsBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

  • Staff phones only, never residents
  • Copies the alarm emails you have
  • No per-user fees

Works by email with

  • Nurse call & pendants
  • MadgeTech
  • Generator & power
  • Cisco Unity

A floor plan of Wing B: Room 214 (pendant) goes into alarm, pendant, its room turns orange and Call server emails the alert. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [Wing B] Room 214 pendant alarm at 2:53 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: alerts arrive through the night and each goes to the right person. 12:21 a.m., to Night nursing supervisor: "Welco: [Pharmacy] Med fridge 2 at 8.8C, above 8C at 12:21 AM. Reply STOP to opt out." 2:53 a.m., to Night PSW, Wing B: "Welco: [Wing B] Room 214 pendant alarm at 2:53 AM. Reply STOP to opt out." 4:32 a.m., to On-call maintenance: "Welco: [Main Bldg] Generator RUNNING, ATS on emergency at 4:32 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

What a long-term care or retirement home gets from Welco

Staff get a text copy of nurse call, fridge, power and IT alarm emails on their own phones. The nurse call system stays the main alarm.

A med room fridge on Thanksgiving weekend

The memory care floor of a retirement residence runs on a night supervisor and one on-call maintenance tech. Here is how a fridge alarm plays out.

  1. The holiday rule starts Friday

    On-call routing sends fridge alarms to the night supervisor and power alarms to on-call maintenance until Tuesday morning.

  2. The logger emails a warm reading

    Alarm: Med Room 2 Fridge Reading: 9.6 C Limit: 8.0 C Location: Memory Care

  3. The supervisor and the tech both get it

    Welco: [Memory Care] Med room fridge 9.6C, above 8.0C at 2:38 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

  4. The supervisor answers from the med room

    Door was ajar after med pass. Closed it, stock moved to fridge 1

  5. The reply is emailed back

    Text replies are emailed to the alarm's sender, so the cause is on record before day shift arrives.

    Reply from the supervisor's phone: Door was ajar after med pass. Closed it, stock moved to fridge 1

  6. The maintenance manager reads the night

    The delivery report shows both phones got the alarm, and the reply explains it. The manager adds a door alarm check to the fridge log.

These times are for illustration, and mobile networks deliver the texts. Replying does not change anything in the logger or the nurse call system.

How to set up alarm texts in a care home

The maintenance manager or your IT contact can do this. Each system needs one more email recipient.

  1. Sign up and verify your organization

    Tell us about your buildings and the alarms you'll send. We verify every organization before its number can send.

  2. Invite the staff who cover nights

    Each person opens the invite, enters their own cellphone and replies YES. Residents and families are never invited.

  3. Add Welco to each alarm email

    Add your Welco address in the logger, generator panel or nurse call email and approve that sender. Test mode shows each text first.

Put your next fridge alarm on the night supervisor's phone

Sign up, verify your organization and approve your logger's sender.

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

Text me my building alarmsBook a demo

Which care home systems can send alarm texts?

Welco doesn't connect to any medical device. It reads the email a system already sends. Kitchens and labs can use freezer and cold storage alarms, and heating and cooling can use Honeywell BMS alarm texts.

Equipment alarms care teams act on overnight

These are masked examples. Property maintenance teams and school facilities staff face the same night gap, as do others in alarm notification by industry.

  • Kitchen: Welco: [Kitchen] Walk-in freezer at -10C, above -12C at 1:27 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Heating: Welco: [West Wing] Boiler 2 fault, loop temp 48C at 5:02 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • IT: Welco: [Server Closet] UPS-1 on battery, 18 min left at 3:15 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

A phone showing these alert texts: Kitchen, "Welco: [Kitchen] Walk-in freezer at -10C, above -12C at 1:27 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Heating, "Welco: [West Wing] Boiler 2 fault, loop temp 48C at 5:02 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; IT, "Welco: [Server Closet] UPS-1 on battery, 18 min left at 3:15 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

Which alarms in a care home should text staff?

Text the equipment alarms that put medicine, heat or power at risk overnight. A copy of call alarms can help a PSW who is away from the console.

Alarms worth a text at night

  • A med or vaccine fridge outside its 2 to 8 C range.
  • A kitchen walk-in cooler or freezer above its limit.
  • The generator running, or the transfer switch on emergency power.
  • A boiler or chiller fault serving a resident wing.
  • A copy of call alarms for the PSW covering that wing, if your system emails them.
  • The server closet UPS running on battery.

Alarms that can wait for day shift

Filter reminders, low logger batteries and a finished weekly generator test. Leave those in email so a night text always means something.

Name every fridge the same way

Set every logger to Celsius and name each fridge by its room. The supervisor then knows which door to open without guessing. See how to write alarm texts staff act on.

A vaccine fridge alarm, from logger email to text

Data logger alarms name the logger, the reading and the limit. Welco keeps those three and the time.

Alert email from alarms@logger.example.com, subject “Alarm: Vaccine Fridge 1”. Welco trims it to one text of 89 characters: “Welco: [Vaccine Fridge 1] HIGH TEMP 9.2C, limit 8.0C at 3:05 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [Vaccine Fridge 1] HIGH TEMP 9.2C, limit 8.0C at 3:05 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Characters173891 credit

Animation: the alert email "Alarm: Vaccine Fridge 1" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [Vaccine Fridge 1] HIGH TEMP 9.2C, limit 8.0C at 3:05 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

Several phones can get the same alarm, such as the night supervisor and the pharmacist. Each phone gets it once. See alerts to several phones.

Night alarms in a care home, then and now

Found in the morning

  • The fridge logger emails a shared inbox nobody opens until day shift.
  • The maintenance manager learns about the generator run from the day report.
  • An urgent IT voicemail waits for someone to log in.
  • Alarm emails carry more detail than a phone screen should show.

With Welco

  • The fridge, the reading and the limit on the supervisor's phone.
  • On-call maintenance hears about the generator while it runs.
  • The IT person plays the voicemail from a link.
  • Room and alarm only, with names and health details left out.

Frequently asked questions

Does Welco take the place of our nurse call system?

No. Welco is a text copy of the alarm emails your nurse call system already sends. Your consoles, pagers and alarm emails all keep working as they do today. Welco adds a text on a staff phone, which helps when a PSW or nurse is away from the console.

Can residents, patients or families get these texts?

No. Welco only sends to staff who joined with their own phone and replied YES. It is never used for resident, patient or family messages. Those belong in your care or family communication tools.

What should a nurse call alarm text include?

The unit or room, the kind of call and the time. Leave out names, diagnoses and other health details. If your system adds them to the email, a Welco rule can keep only the first line. Staff read it as a normal text, with no app.

What if a PSW's phone is off when an alarm comes in?

The text won't reach that phone, and the delivery report will say the phone was off. That is why the nurse call system stays the main alarm. For important alarms, send the text to two phones, such as the PSW and the night supervisor.

Can our IT team get server and network alerts through the same account?

Yes. Approve your monitoring tool as a sender and write a rule that sends its alerts to IT staff only. Mail from any sender you haven't approved is refused. Care staff won't see IT alerts unless a person is on both rules.

What does Welco cost for one home?

Welco has no per-user fees, no hardware and no setup fee, so adding night staff costs nothing extra. The alarms you text spend message credits from your monthly plan, shown in US dollars on Welco pricing. Your first 7 days are free with 15 credits. The card that verifies your organization is billed only after you approve a plan, and we email you first.

Will a power outage set off a pile of texts at once?

It can trip many alarms together, but flood control for alarm bursts caps how many become texts. On-call maintenance gets the first ones, such as the generator start, and checks the rest at the panel. Alarms past the cap stay in email only.

Give your night staff a text copy of the alarms that matter

Approve one alarm sender and invite your night staff to join.

Text me my building alarmsBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing