BEDSIDE GUIDE · FREE FROM TIMERTAG
Bedside Guide
Free patient guidance for IV lines, urinary catheters and dressings, plus two reminders every patient can act on: brush your teeth to help prevent pneumonia, and get help before getting up. Print one bedside sheet for each bed. Patients scan with their own phone and read it in their own language.
One sheet at every bed
The sheet is free under the Bedside Guide Download and Usage Agreement.
FREE
Bedside sheet on the wall
One A4 or US Letter sheet at each bed. One QR code covers IV lines, urinary catheters, dressings, brushing and falls, and shows your unit's call-for-advice number. You choose the languages, from 20.
Print on an office printer, laminate, and hang it by the bed head.
HOW IT WORKS
Patient guidance, at no cost
The Bedside Guide is the guidance layer on its own, free. Patients or family scan the QR code with a phone camera, and written guidance opens straight away in their own language, with a globe button to switch between 20 languages and a read-aloud button.
The guidance covers:
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IV lines, urinary catheters and dressings: the warning signs to look for, and when to contact the care team.
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A daily check: a reminder to look at the device every day and go through the warning signs again.
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Brushing teeth: twice a day, morning and night, to help prevent pneumonia.
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Falls: call the nurse before getting up if told to, don't rush to the toilet, and keep non-slip footwear, glasses and the call bell within reach.
The Bedside Guide collects nothing from patients. No personal details, no health records, no cookies, and nothing for a patient to opt out of. We count scans and sheets printed by country and region, without identifying anyone.
Why is the Bedside Guide free?
Because we can, and because it might help. Timertag started as a way to deliver dwell time visibility at the point of care and get each device into the EHR. Along the way we wrote patient guidance for IV lines, urinary catheters and dressings in 20 languages. It isn't proprietary and costs us very little to host, so we're giving it away.
What's the catch?
There isn't one. No app, no accounts, no patient data, nothing to buy. If the Bedside Guide is useful and you'd like dwell time visibility on your unit, we'd love to hear from you.
FOR EVERY PATIENT
Two reminders backed by landmark trials
Pneumonia and falls are risks for every patient in hospital, whatever device they have. Patients can do something about both, so the Bedside Guide reminds them.
Brush your teeth
Pneumonia is one of the most common infections acquired in hospital. In the HAPPEN trial of 8,870 patients in three Australian hospitals, giving ward patients a toothbrush, toothpaste and oral care education was followed by about 60% less non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia [7]. The Bedside Guide reminds patients to brush twice a day and shows them how to set a voice reminder on their phone.
Get help before getting up
Falls are the most frequently reported adverse event in hospitals. In a trial across eight Australian rehabilitation units, individualized falls-prevention education for patients, with staff training and feedback, cut the falls rate by about 40% [9]. The Bedside Guide reminds patients to call their nurse before getting up if they've been told to, and not to rush.
The Bedside Guide delivers the patient reminder only. Both trials ran full programs that also included staff training and support. Numbers in brackets refer to The evidence, below.
PATIENT SCREENS
See what patients see
On a phone or tablet, tap the sheet below.
On a desktop, scan the QR code with your phone camera.
Bedside sheet
No procurement cycle
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No software to install and no IT project.
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No licensing fees and no patient accounts to manage.
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The only cost is printing the sheets on your own printer.
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A unit can start this week.
FREE EVALUATION
Evaluate it on your unit
Optional. A four-week evaluation guide and a ready-made feedback form for the bedside sheet. Opening the form creates a private copy in your own Google account, so your responses stay with you and Timertag never sees them. To keep the option of adding your results to a pooled evaluation, keep the core questions as they are and add your own in a new section at the end.
The form is in English. To use another language, translate your copy and have it checked by a bilingual clinician, ideally with a back-translation, then run a short pilot. Your version and its data stay in your account.
The evidence
The Bedside Guide's guidance on IV lines, urinary catheters, dressings, brushing teeth and falls is consistent with these guidelines and trials. It tells patients what to look for, what they can do, and when to contact their care team. It doesn't replace clinical advice or your hospital's policies.
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WHO. Guidelines for the prevention of bloodstream infections and other infections associated with the use of intravascular catheters. Part 1: peripheral catheters. Geneva: WHO; 2024.
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O'Grady NP, et al. Guidelines for the Prevention of Intravascular Catheter-Related Infections. CDC/HICPAC; 2011.
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Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Management of Peripheral Intravenous Catheters Clinical Care Standard, 2021, and IV-WISE patient discussion tool.
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Gould CV, et al. Guideline for Prevention of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections. CDC/HICPAC; 2009.
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Patel PK, et al. Strategies to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections in acute-care hospitals: 2022 update. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2023;44:1209-31.
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Saint S, et al. A program to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infection in acute care. N Engl J Med. 2016;374:2111-19.
- Mitchell BG, et al. Effectiveness of oral care for the prevention of non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAPPEN): a multicentre, stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised trial in Australia. Lancet Infect Dis. 2026.
- Klompas M, et al. Strategies to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia, ventilator-associated events, and nonventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia in acute-care hospitals: 2022 update. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2022;43:687-713.
- Hill A-M, et al. Fall rates in hospital rehabilitation units after individualised patient and staff education programmes: a pragmatic, stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2015;385:2592-99.
- Montero-Odasso M, et al. World guidelines for falls prevention and management for older adults: a global initiative. Age Ageing. 2022;51(9):afac205.
- Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Falls Guidelines for Hospitals. 2025.
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Loveday HP, et al. epic3: national evidence-based guidelines for preventing healthcare-associated infections in NHS hospitals in England. J Hosp Infect. 2014;86(Suppl 1):S1-70.
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NICE. Healthcare-associated infections: prevention and control in primary and community care (CG139). 2012, updated 2017.
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WHO. Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030. Geneva: WHO; 2021.