American River Medical was asked to provide isolation solutions for the Emergency Department of this hospital. We utilized a combination of mobile and fixed wall solutions.

Isolation Cart Excellence. Both of these isolation rooms in the Emergency Department utilize a combination of mobile and fixed storage solutions for isolation supplies

Isolation Cart and Fixed Isolation Wall Supply Storage converge for a True Solution.

To learn more about Isolation Carts, Isolation Wall Solutions, or all things medical carts please visit the #1 Google ranked medical cart blog, cartadvocate.com

About – American River Medical is the west coast medical cart and storage leader for the industry’s leading manufacturers and suppliers. We are focused and purposeful in serving clients’ complete medical cart and storage experience. Our commitment to clients is demonstrated through service centered representation of only the best brands. American River Medical’s cart and storage systems improve quality of patient care through optimized storage of equipment, supplies, medications, and data. ARM’s core competency in carts and storage combined with value-add services and strategic partnerships deliver a proven, unique, and refreshing value proposition. True Solutions.

Recently Patrick Ney, Vice President of Anton/Bauer’s Mobile Power Systems, sat down for a Q&A session regarding medical carts and their increasingly important power supply solutions. Below is a excerpt of the conversation. To view the entire Sit Down conversation please visit cartadvocate.com . This will be followed by a in depth article 0n Medical Cart Mobile Power Systems that you will find published at http://testarm2.dependentmedia.com/ .

conversation already in progress…

cartadvocate – Great. That makes a lot of sense Patrick. So if we were take that to a more granular level, what would the main points be?

PN – The points to consider when selecting a medical cart power system include.

1.       Runtime is one of the most important variables to consider: During the planning stage, the hospital must understand the total wattage required for all of the technology devices being considered. It is not recommended that an inverter is used but when it is, the inefficiency must also be considered. Let’s assume a requirement of 50W.

2.       Next, we need to know how many hours the system must operate before it is recharged. Let’s assume that the nurse needs 7 hours of runtime.

3.       Calculate the minimum capacity of a battery that will provide 7 hours of continuous runtime by multiplying the wattage required by the number of hours needed. (7hrs x 50watts = 350 Watt-hours.)

4.       In this case, the battery selected must have a minimum capacity 350Wh to run for 7 hours. –Regardless of what the salesperson is telling you.

cartadvocate – OK. I think everyone agrees that makes a lot of sense. After run time consideration…

Go here – To read the complete conversation with Patrick Ney of Anton/Bauer on Medical Cart Mobile Power Systems.

Medical cart configurations can be selected prior to ordering from the manufacturer. Sometimes there is a small fee associated with this, but well worth having your equipment and supplies stored optimally. How the actual storage space of the medical cart is configured is usually indicative of the cart names and applications. Workstations  on wheels, computer on wheels, and point of care carts now frequently have medication bins or drawers attached. Right now I am specifically referencing “Full Bodied” carts, such as shown in here (ARN-19-000E by S&S MedCart).

A “30-inch cart” refers to the vertical storage space available to be configured. Not to be confused with the overall total cart height, which would included the entire cart, top, raised edge, and even push handle/s if they are higher than the cart top.

The 30″ storage space can be broken into ten (10) 3″ increments. Cart manufacturers offer drawers and medication bins to fill that space. The bins most commonly come in Cassette’s, which actually house the bins and occupy a section of the available vertical storage space.

Drawers: medical cart drawers are offered in 3″, 6″, 9″, 12″ vertical sizes. Some manufacturers offer a 4″, but it is not as common. Here are some theoretical examples of potential drawer configurations. They are referenced from the top of  the cart to the bottom.

A. Quantity 5 – 3″, 1 – 6″, and 1 – 9″ drawers (vertical drawer space totals 30″)

B. Quantity 1 – 3″, 3 – 9″ drawers (vertical drawer space totals 30″)

C. Quantity 5 – 6″ drawers (shown, vertical drawer space totals 30″)

Medication bins typically come in sizes of 8.25″ wide, or 5.5″ wide. Most medical carts allow for 3 wide of the 5.5″ bins, or 2 wide with the 8.25″ bins. Vertically, medication bin cassettes are either in 6″, or 12″ vertical sizes. So a 6″ medication bin cassette will have  quantity six (6) actual 5.5″ bins ( 3 wide x 2 high). The same 6″ bin cassette could also have quantity four (4) actual 8.25″ bins ( 2 wide x 2 high).

A 12″ bin cassette could either offer quantity twelve (12) 5.5″ bins ( 3 wide x 4 high) or quantity eight (8) 8.25″ bins ( 2 wide x 4 high).

Whether your medical cart application suggests drawers, bins, or a combination of both, work within your total vertical drawer space available and design to optimize your space, storage, access, and restocking needs.

-Your Trusted Cart Advocate / tagg neal

Medical Cart Name Applications

…are a vernacular of their own. Nobody bat’s an eye amongst nurses, tech’s, sales representatives and health care professionals when someone asks, “Where’s an ‘Isolation cart’?” By using the name “Isolation cart”, they are referring to a specific type of cart, which has a specific cart application. I will discuss individual cart types by application names in later posts. Here is a list of some of the most common medical cart name applications.

• 250 yard rule
• airway
• anesthesia
• bedside
• bio-terror
• burn
• case
• cast
• catheter
• code
• computer
• crash
• critical care
• delivery
• difficult airway
• education
• emergency
• endoscopy
• ENT
• epidural
• evidence
• exchange
• gyno
• hypothermia
• isolation
• IV (start)
• long-term care
• medication
• medsurg
• neonate
• nurser server
• OB
• ortho
• ostomy
• pediatric airway
• pediatric emergency
• phlebotomy
• picc-line
• point of care (POC)
• procedure
• property
• respiratory
• sepsis
• septic shock
• sart (sexual assault response team)
• specialty
• specimen
• spine
• stainless
• sternum
• supply
• surgery
• traction
• training
• transfer
• trauma
• treatment

Now that you know the medical cart name applications, you can refer to the medical cart names in post #002 and begin adding them together. Here are some examples:

anesthesia workstation

crash cart

medication mobile solution

point of care medcart

procedure medical cart

nurse server workstation on wheels

specialty cart solution

This is a great list of the most popular medical cart name applications. Please share any additional names of common carts in your facility! I will post them for all to share. Thank you

-Your Trusted Cart Advocate / tagg neal

Mobile Solution, Medical Cart, MedCart, Mobile Workstation...

Medical Cart seems to be the default name to represent a physical storage space on wheels in a healthcare facility. As with most things today, there are many names and dialects within a hospital to refer to the cart. Here are a few of the most common.

1. medical cart

2. med cart

3. medication cart (used generically in this context)

4. cart

5. mobile solution

6. COW – computer on wheels

7. WOW – workstation on wheels (a politically correct COW)

and now for a few common HYBRIDS

8.  mobile cart

9. mobile workstation

10. cart solution

-Your Trusted Cart Advocate / tagg neal