Cart vendors seek to win the space race - Products & Services

Healthcare Purchasing News, Sept, 2002 by Karin Lillis

Storage space in hospitals comes at a premium, and it's often among the first areas managers look to when they need to increase revenue-generating space in their hospitals. As a result, cart manufacturers find themselves streamlining products that allow departments like recordkeeping and central supply the storage space they need and requiring less actual floor space in the hospital.

Moreover, today's cart suppliers are finding that they need to ensure that their products are compatible with the computerized and wireless systems in use in many hospitals, and that the products they design are safe.

A little more space, please

"One area of particular concern is the privacy rule coming about via HIPAA legislation," notes Christopher Batterman, director of marketing for Spacesaver Corp., Fort Atkinson, WI. "A lot of the chatter regarding HIPAA focuses on electronic data storage and confidential medical records, but the same privacy rules require secure storage of medical records."

Batterman says his company offers lockable storage products designed to convert a variety of standard shelving systems to movable, compactable and lockable units. "In a typical hospital file room where stationary shelving is used, all of the files are exposed at any given time," he says. "Unless the door to the file room is secured, there is virtually unlimited access to any information on the shelf."

For instance, Spacesaver's TouchPad security system allows a hospital to control access to confidential medical records. To gain aisle access, an authorized user enters a four-digit code on the 10-digit keypad mounted on the end of the desired aisle. Upon leaving the aisle, the user closes the aisle with a "system close" button at the end of the module. The TouchPad aisle access control is designed to protect sensitive records and materials like medical records, pharmaceuticals, financial records, personnel records, legal records, evidence and product design documentation, according to Spacesaver. The security system will also help healthcare providers meet HIPAA privacy regulations.

"As hospital personnel change, all you have to do is reprogram the keypad to a new four-digit code," Batterman says. The TouchPad technology is also available for rotary file storage systems used in smaller organizations like clinics and nonacute-care facilities.

Spacesaver systems also allow a hospital to decrease the storage space it needs for paper documents, Budget-crunched hospitals need to find ways to make a profit, or at least minimize costs and increase revenues, Batterman says. "That means they're having to win back floor space for revenue-generating departments. Where are they finding that space if they're landlocked? They'll look to storage areas, which are already in short supply," he explains.

Carol Rubin, vice president of marketing for Blickman Health Industries Inc., Lodi, NJ, has uncovered similar needs when it comes to case carts in sterile processing departments. As hospitals redesign surgical services and central sterile units, adequate holding areas for case carts are often omitted from the planning mix. "That can sometimes impact the design of case carts," she says. "In response, we've made some case carts taller to minimize the floor space required while still maintaining the storage capacity."

Outsourcing sterile processing functions may also mean that carts must be transported regularly in and out of the hospital. For Blickman, that meant making a sturdier cart, one that could go "off road," Rubin notes. "For carts to go from one building to another or go 'off road,' we have redesigned the carts by using heavier gauge material and casters and protecting contents by locking the paddle latches that keep the doors closed," she says.

Wireless-compatible medication carts

As hospitals convert to computerized and wireless systems, products like medication carts must adapt to meet changing needs, says Jane Laycock, product manager for medication and healthcare carts at Exton, PA-based Lionville Systems.

Many hospitals hook notebook PCs or Thin Client computers into medication carts, she says. "We're building carts with locked compartments where the caregiver can put the computer and we're able to put some rechargeable battery units under the carts," Laycock explains.

Customers also want keyless entry. "They need a cart that in some point in time will lock itself. We offer motion sensors in our carts, and when no activity is sensed for a period of time--a few seconds or a few minutes, depending on what the client sets--the cart sounds an alert tone and relocks itself," Laycock says.

Wireless considerations aside, the size of today's carts has become a factor as well. Laycock adds. "Carts need to be smaller because nurses have to maneuver them in and out of patient rooms. Each nurse serves fewer patients. Five years ago, carts might have had 20 patient drawers, but now they have four to 10 drawers per cart," she says.

Safety first

Warren Armstrong, president of Armstrong Medical Industries, Lincolnshire, IL, says safety is an often-overlooked component in designs of products like crash carts. When a nurse is rushing a cart to aid a patient who has just gone into cardiac arrest, she's likely not thinking about whether all the cart drawers are closed or if it might tip when she rounds a corner. And, since hospitals don't routinely buy carts on a widespread basis, the staff member purchasing the cart might not consider all necessary factors, like how well the cart can handle corners and whether drawers will spring open, according to Armstrong.