Celebrating 15 Years of Carts and Storage for Nursing, American River Medical is reflecting with gratitude.

In 2008 Founder and President Taggart Neal found himself with an opportunity to serve a hospital cart client beyond his current role of employment. Over that time American River Medical has performed countless medical cart, workstation cart, and medical storage solution proposals, service and sales for hospital nursing staff. Primarily focused on acute care hospitals in the western US, American River Medical has enjoyed over ten sales representatives and territory managers, six college interns, and greater than fifty suppliers and manufacturers.

Contributing to its success are its unsurpassed personalized service, and its discriminating product portfolio. Word of mouth, referral, and repeat clientele continue to be the engine behind its medical cart business opportunities of service before and beyond “The quote.” American River Medical only represents the very best in medical cart and storage product lines for nursing.

“We do more than make a call and email a quote, we show up and listen, listen, and listen some more, then deliver the best carts that elevate nurses ability to provide superior patient care. That’s our role and we love it!”

The relationships formed over these years with nurses in over ten states are the greatest pride and joy of American River Medical. These relationships are based on trust, respect, industry knowledge, and level of service ARM is small enough to accept and big enough to deliver.

President and Founder Taggart Neal says, “We do more than make a call and email a quote, we show up and listen, listen, and listen some more, then deliver the best carts that elevate nurses ability to provide superior patient care. That’s our role and we love it!” When asked what has been the most valuable lesson in the fifteen years in business Neal thinks for a minute and opines, “We spent two to three years learning what we do great and what we do pretty good or okay. Learning to be disciplined and stay in our lane doing only what we do great is likely our most valuable lesson in terms of growing business by being the best we can be for hospital nursing staff. We eat, sleep and dream medical carts. We are medical carts for nursing.”

American River Medical has sold and delivered carts into over ten states where their focus areas reside in California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona. Technology has advanced their offerings to mobile computing carts, tele-health / tele-medicine carts, tablet carts, wall arm desk workstations, of course medical carts of various applications for every department in a hospital. The global pandemic COVID-19 saw the addition to ARM’s portfolio of single patient use carts, as the HEROCart™ from TAGCarts® was deployed and served various pop-up and temporary environments of care.

In 2023 American River Medical enjoys representing a small group of medical and workstation cart manufacturers and suppliers, as they focus only on bringing the most innovative and highly designed cart solutions to their existing and prospective hospital clientele. The company has received various awards and acknowledgments over the years, is in the accounts payable systems of over 750 hospitals, and is a proud diversified supplier as a Veteran Owned Small Business.

American River Medical thanks all nurses for performing a very difficult and exhausting job. We are grateful to all of our suppliers past and current, who enable us to be small part of making nurses’ work safer, more efficient, and rewarding along the way.

Cheers to 15 Years!

– Team American River Medical (Kari, Tina, Tami and Tagg)

#Nursing #MedicalCarts #TAGCarts #CapsaHealthcare #Waterloo #EnovateMedical #GCX #Tryten

“Any improvements to minimize the number of interruptions experienced by nurses will improve healthcare quality and will help ensure patient safety.”

American River Medical Commentary – “This data directly correlates to medical cart workstation usage by nursing professionals. It identifies ‘Cumbersome processes’ which the current environment of care requires nurses to monitor, manage, and maintain the power systems on their medical carts and workstations. These ‘Cumbersome processes’ are unnecessary and distract from patient care. Thus, if innovative medical cart workstations reduce nurses’ travel paths and eliminate unnecessary interruptions enhanced patient care will be achieved which positively impacts better patient outcomes.”

“I contend available (geographically proximate and consistent), reliable, and abundantly powered medical cart workstations will enhance nursing work flow, elevate quality of patient care, reduce work place risk injury, and improve work place satisfaction. American River Medical continues to gain momentum and stakeholder buy-in on our project to innovate medical cart workstations that embody such an environment of care, possessing infinite scalability to grow with future increasing power demands on all types of medical carts.”

Tagg Neal, President – American River Medical, LLC

Knowledge Repository – The Knowledge Repository is a free user-friendly library of design resources that continues to grow with the latest research. Thank you to The Center For Health Design for making the KR free and available to all for the advancement of better healthcare. See bottom of this article for more information and a link to the KR.

Interruptions and Geographic Challenges to Nurses’ Cognitive Workload

*2009 Key Point Summary by: Terri Zborowsky

Author(s)

• Redding, D.
• Robinson, S.

Publication Source

Journal of Nursing Care Quality;

From: Knowledge Repository, The Center For Health Design

Issue 3, Pages 194 – 200

Copyright 2015 The Center for Health Design. All Rights Reserved.

Redding,D.,Robinson,S.2009|JournalofNursingCareQualityVolume24,Issue3,Pages194–200

OBJECTIVES This study set out to examine workload interruptions for nurses in medical-surgical hospital units, with the intent to identify methods for reducing interruptions and improving the nurses’ cognitive work efficiency.

Key Concepts / Contex – Inpatient care is fast-paced and requires nurses to constantly shift their attention to make clinical decisions and care for patients in a constantly environment. Nurses integrate complex thinking with psychomotor and affective skills to deliver interventions. This thinking is continually disrupted by interruptions and distractions, which compete for their attention and can lead to errors or omissions and potentially pose a risk to patient safety. Earlier studies estimate that each interruption reflected an operational loss and cost $95. The research methods used in this study replicated a prior study.

Methods – The study was conducted in medical-surgical nursing units at a 562-bed, tertiary care, urban hospital in the Midwest. The units comprised two medical units, two surgical units, and two cardiology units (one medical, one surgical). The units ranged from 30 beds (medical oncology) to 37 beds (cardiology surgical). Three of the units (medical, surgical, and cardiology medical) included intermediate care beds with invasive monitoring capacity.

The descriptive study included quantitative and qualitative observation techniques. Data collection tools included observations by two trained nurse faculty practitioners who tracked nurses’ paths on floor plans as well as kept field notes on the nurses’ actions and communication with others. A convenience sample of 32 staff nurses was observed during the day shift, working in six medical-surgical nursing units.

The study calculated interruption frequencies by type and qualitatively assessed subjects’ travel patterns to identify possible sources of interruptions and cumbersome processes interfering with patient care.

Findings – The study calculated interruption frequencies by type and qualitatively assessed subjects’ travel patterns to identify possible sources of interruptions and cumbersome processes interfering with patient care. Observers recorded 244 interruptions and found six major themes: (1) employees asking questions, (2) distracting peripheral conversations, (3) unavailable supplies that required the nurse to get them, (4) phone calls, (5) family questions, and (6) patient call lights.

Travel patterns also contributed to workflow interruptions. Nurses traveled frequently between patient rooms, medication carts or stations, and centralized equipment and care supplies locations, responding to requests from patients and other caregivers.

Reviewer note: This article discusses many findings relative to nursing unit design than can be represented here. Therefore, review of this article is recommended.

Limitations – This study is limited in that it was conducted at only one hospital where the system of care, operations, equipment, and staffing patterns may be unique to this environment. Further, the observations were all made on the day shift.

The observers did not enter patient rooms to avoid creating yet another distraction; thus, some interruptions may not have been recorded. Finally, it is possible that observers classified observations into different categories, despite their training.

Design Implications – Many interruptions occurred while nurses were in the process of performing intervention activities such as traveling to patient rooms, gathering supplies, preparing or administering medication, and patient teaching, creating a risk for medication error and the potential for unintentional omissions in care. As the authors note, “Any improvements to minimize the number of interruptions experienced by nurses will improve healthcare quality and will help ensure patient safety.”

The data from this study suggest that nurses’ travel paths on a unit create interruptions in their ability to carry out efficient patient care. Designers might consider the results of this study as they work with staff planning for their work flow. The End.

About the Knowledge Repository: The Knowledge Repository is a complete, user-friendly library of healthcare design resources that continues to grow with the latest research. Learn More Here

About The Center For Health Design: The Center for Health Design is a nonprofit 501c(3) organization whose mission is to transform healthcare environments for a healthier, safer world through design research, education and advocacy. Learn More Here

About American River Medical: American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We embrace project based work, collaboration, and “Outside the box” thinking that offer opportunities to positively impact medical cart system solutions for healthcare. We fuse our experience to apply innovation where inefficiencies exist, and creativity to apply design improvements for medical cart system solutions. American River Medical is a certified Veteran Owned Small Business and a sought after diversified supplier for hundreds of healthcare systems. As a healthcare professional you’ve dedicated yourself to patient care. Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make your calling more meaningful, efficient and effective. True Solutions.

Download the Synopsis of the Key Point Summary from the Knowledge Repository here

Sacramento, CA USA

Medical cart workstation delivery “WOW” is a play on words. The client expressed they were “WOW” ‘d by my service and care to ensure their carts arrived safely and timely from the busy receiving dock to their department. Additionally they received a “WOW” as a medical cart workstation is loosely referred to as a “WOW”, or Workstation On Wheels.

Medical cart workstations are paramount to healthcare. Nurses rely on medical carts as a valuable resource tool to provide care to patients, at the beside or, “The Point of Care” (POC). The mobility, storage optimization, and access to the supplies, equipment, medication, or electronic data are what enable the care at the patient bedside.

After unboxing the carts and removing them from their pallets I grouped them together, cleaned them up, and then performed a ten point inspection. This is critical as the client often may not have time to do so or if they do it may be days or weeks from the time they are received. If something did occur during shipment from the factory we want to be sure to acknowledge that damage and process the resolution as quickly as possible.

The healthcare client often doesn’t have time to do so or if they do it may be days or weeks from the time they are received. If something did occur during shipment from the factory we want to be sure to acknowledge that damage and process the resolution as quickly as possible.

I’m grateful to to this hospital staff who put their trust in American River Medical once again for their medical cart workstation needs as well as to our supplier partner, Enovate Medical.

For Your Medical Cart Solutions,

Tagg Neal

About American River Medical: We are Medical Carts. They are our passion, purpose, discipline, and expertise.

Medical Cart – noun, /med-i-kul – ‘kart/; “Mobile systems, solutions, or workstations that optimize the storage, mobilization, and access of healthcare equipment, supplies, medication, and electronic data.” -American River Medical, LLC

American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We embrace project based work, collaboration, and “Outside the box” thinking that offer opportunities to positively impact medical cart system solutions for healthcare. We fuse our experience to apply innovation where inefficiencies exist, and creativity to apply design improvements for medical cart system solutions. American River Medical is a certified Veteran Owned Small Business and a sought after diversified supplier for hundreds of healthcare systems. As a healthcare professional you’ve dedicated yourself to patient care. Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make your calling more meaningful, efficient and effective. True Solutions.

The Marketing Research class of The W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, has partnered with American River Medical, LLC to conduct a marketing research study. The marketing research students will develop and field a Qualtrics online survey, and present their analysis and recommendations on American River Medical’s project and patent pending invention pertaining to “Medical Cart Mobile Power Systems” for healthcare. The research study is being overseen by Franke College of Business’s Assistant Professor of Practice, Marketing and Executive-in-Residence, Len Hostetter, and being conducted during the spring semester 2019.

Len Hostetter earned a B.S. of Business and Economics from Lehigh University as well as a M.B.A. in Marketing from The Harvard Business School. 

Taggart Neal earned a B.S. from Northern Arizona University, is a second generation Lumberjack, and has an Evidence-Based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC) from The Center for Health Design. 

Professor Hostetter shares, “I’m thrilled to help Tagg as an alumnus of Northern Arizona University and American River Medical in marketing research for their visionary and innovative concept for healthcare. Tagg is a recognized subject matter expert of medical carts and workstations for healthcare and we’re proud to continue to be a part of his professional development, as well as work on a project with such immense potential to positively impact healthcare sustainability, workflows, and outcomes”, says Hostetter. 

According to American River Medical President, Tagg Neal, “It is a privilege to partner with fellow Lumberjacks at NAU on one of my company’s project design concepts for healthcare. This is a first step towards understanding the environment of care without a body of data surrounding healthcare medical cart mobile power systems and the negative impact they have on healthcare professionals’ workflow, work place safety, patient outcomes, and hospitals’ sustainability goals and green initiatives. Together we will analyze the data that will either support or refine the hypothesis underlying my patent pending design for the future of medical cart mobile power systems”, shares Neal. 

NAU – The W.A. Franke College of Business – https://nau.edu/franke/

American River Medical – https://www.americanrivermedical.com/

Download the article
About American River Medical: We are Medical Carts. They are our passion, purpose, discipline, and expertise.

Medical Cart – noun, /med-i-kul – ‘kart/; “Mobile systems, solutions, or workstations that optimize the storage, mobilization, and access of healthcare equipment, supplies, medication, and electronic data.” -American River Medical, LLC

American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We embrace project based work, collaboration, and “Outside the box” thinking that offer opportunities to positively impact medical cart system solutions for healthcare. We fuse our experience to apply innovation where inefficiencies exist, and creativity to apply design improvements for medical cart system solutions. American River Medical is a certified Veteran Owned Small Business and a sought after diversified supplier for hundreds of healthcare systems. As a healthcare professional you’ve dedicated yourself to patient care. Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make your calling more meaningful, efficient and effective. True Solutions.

The company’s new site adds e-commerce store capabilities, content and visitor analytics, and enhances the user experience as a now mobile friendly site. Please take a visit for yourself and let us know how we may continue to improve. @AmericanRivMed

AmericanRiverMedical.com.

El Dorado Hills, CA USA – American River Medical has launched a project to officially define the commonly used word phrase “Medical Cart” for the benefit of the greater medical cart industry. Originally defined online in 2011 by American River Medical, now the project is going in front of the dictionary officials at Merriam-Webster for review and acceptance.

Project Basics – see complete project to learn more

Project: Medical Cart Definition – Define What You Do

What: Define What You Do – After eight years in medical carts around 2011 American River Medical President, Tagg Neal, heard a motivational speech which said, “Define What You Do.” He had dedicated nearly a decade of his career to medical carts and asked the question, “What is the definition of a medical cart?” After research he found it had never been defined – a definition did not exist. He performed a process to define the word phrase “Medical Cart” which was used dozens of times a day in his life. After distillation and refinement he posted his proposed definition on this website in 2011 and it has been American River Medical’s working definition ever since:

Medical Cart – noun, /med-i-kul – ‘kart/; “Mobile systems, solutions, or workstations that optimize the storage, mobilization, and access of healthcare equipment, supplies, medication, and electronic data.” -American River Medical, LLC

Who: American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We welcome the opportunity for potential project collaboration

Why: Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make healthcare professionals’ calling more meaningful, efficient and effective

Example: The hospital utilizes various “Medical carts” to optimize the storage, mobility, and access of medical equipment, supplies, medication, and electronic data for their staff’s practice of healthcare

This project ‘medical cart definition – define what you do’ may be followed for ongoing updates under projects , directly under ‘medical cart definition – define what you do‘ or via e-mail sign up on the footer of this page, or by following News on our own View & Learn blog

Who We Are: American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We embrace project based work, collaboration, and thinking “Outside the box” that offer opportunities to positively impact medical cart system solutions for healthcare. We fuse our experience to apply innovation where inefficiencies exist, and creativity to apply design improvements for medical cart system solutions. True Solutions. We are a certified Veteran Owned Small Business and a sought after diversified supplier for hundreds of healthcare systems. As a medical professional, you’ve dedicated yourself to patient care. Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make your calling more meaningful, efficient and effective.

We welcome inquiries from healthcare facilities as well as suppliers and manufactures of medical cart solutions to learn how collaboration with American River Medical works for our clients.

See our Services page to learn more and contact us today for product #AR-VAR

Who We Are: American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We embrace project based work, collaboration, and “Thinking outside the box” that offer opportunities to positively impact medical cart system solutions for healthcare. We fuse our experience to apply innovation where inefficiencies exist, and creativity to apply design improvements for medical cart system solutions. True Solutions. We are a certified Veteran Owned Small Business and a sought after diversified supplier for hundreds of healthcare systems. As a medical professional, you’ve dedicated yourself to patient care. Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make your calling more meaningful, efficient and effective.

Whether you’re expecting a medical cart delivery or still looking to start your order – let us assist with medical cart delivery assist services so you can remain focused on healthcare. You’ll be glad you did!

See our Services page to learn more and contact us today for product #AR-DAS

Who We Are: American River Medical is a innovation, design and service company focused on medical cart and storage systems for healthcare. We embrace project based work, collaboration, and “Thinking outside the box” that offer opportunities to positively impact medical cart system solutions for healthcare. We fuse our experience to apply innovation where inefficiencies exist, and creativity to apply design improvements for medical cart system solutions. True Solutions. We are a certified Veteran Owned Small Business and a sought after diversified supplier for hundreds of healthcare systems. As a medical professional, you’ve dedicated yourself to patient care. Our mission is to provide medical cart systems, services, and solutions that make your calling more meaningful, efficient and effective.

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.

This Anesthesia Cart provides abundant, controlled, mobile, and optimized anesthesia supply storage – American River Medical.

Anesthesia Cart medication drawer supply storage is controlled, optimized, and mobile – American River Medical

In the surgery suites the Anesthesia Cart really plays three primary functions for the Anesthesiologist or CRNA (Certified Nurse Anesthetist): 

• Access Control
• Mobility
• Supply Optimization

Anesthesia Cart supply storage is controlled, optimized, and mobile – American River Medical

The access control on the anesthesia cart must provide security for the contents of the cart while simultaneously giving authorized users access. It should be pointed out that this is “Critical Access” as the patient is sedated and/or anesthestitized during the procedure and quick and direct access is literally a life or death matter. The anesthesia cart itself will typically have dual credentialed access. This means that one credential is required to access the cart itself, while a secondary access credential is required to access the medications and narcotics. This feature allows the benefit of staff to access and restock the non substance controlled supplies and equipment without having access to the controlled substances drawer(s) of the cart. 

Once the primary access credential has been utilized to access the main cart, the anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist may provide a secondary credential to access the medications, narcotics, and controlled substance area of the anesthesia cart. 

Primary and secondary credentials can be Keys (key plus core lock), numeric codes or sequences entered into an electronic keypad, or RFID proximity cards presented to a reader integrated with the anesthesia cart. In the early years of this millennial there was a wide spread adoption of the proximity cards for anesthesia cart access control. However this trend has reversed in the last five years due to the laborious processes involved in maintaining user databases for the cards. Temporary anesthesia groups may be contracted one year and gone the next, anesthesia technician staff turnover is frequent, and another factor is the replacement of lost or misplaced cards. The hard costs of implementing the proximity card feature as well as the soft costs of operationally maintaining the compliance of that feature have caused a trend back toward the electronic keypad and numeric sequences assigned to individual users. The electronic keypad numerical sequence seems to provide the best of both worlds in simplicity and compliance. 

Mobility 
The anesthesia cart give the supplies, equipment, and medication mobility. Mobility gives the surgical department three primary options for their Anesthesia Cart Systems. 

1. Mobile Anesthesia Carts allow for a Anesthesia Cart Exchange System. A surgery department with ten suites may have twenty to twenty four anesthesia carts. The anesthesia technicians are reconciling the supplies in the carts from the prior days use, and “Exchanging” them at the end of the day. Thus the surgical suites have brand new reconciled anesthesia carts with complete supplies at the ready to start their day’s surgical procedures. Then they restock the other ten to twelve carts to switch out at the end of that day. This requires increased PAR levels of anesthesia equipment, supplies, and medication, but makes for a seamless and continual use of anesthesia carts fully optimized for patient care. 
2. Mobile Anesthesia carts allow for a Multi-Use Anesthesia Cart System. In contrary to the anesthesia cart exchange system, some surgical departments with the same ten suites may only utilize seven to eight carts. In some instances surgical suites are not used concurrently and therefore there is no need to have the sum of anesthesia carts equal to the sum of surgical suites. A multi-use anesthesia cart system provides the benefits of reduced PAR levels of supplies, equipment, and medications. When a procedure is completed in one suite, the anesthesia cart can be rolled into another suite that is about to be operated in. They can also all be rolled into the anesthesia room at the end of the day for restocking, and then rolled back into the specific suites where the first procedures of the following day will take place. 
3. Mobile Anesthesia Carts may also provide for Physician Specific Anesthesia Cart Systems. Physician Specific Anesthesia Cart Systems provide for each anesthesiologist (or CRNA) to have their own specific Anesthesia Cart. Anesthesiologist have a critical role in patient surgical outcomes. A Physician Specific Anesthesia Cart System empowers them to individually optimize their own cart on a day to day basis, maintaining one hundred percent accountability for their practice. In this system you may see a potpourri of different cart types, manufacturers, and even premier sound systems which often play anything from Johann Sebastian Bach to Pink Floyd for a tranquil operating environment. 

Supply Optimization 
Anesthesia Carts provide for anesthesia supplies, equipment, and medication to be optimally stored in a logical orientation. This includes syringes, needles, medications, tracheal tubes, oxygen masks, and much more. The cart represents individual storage compartments in the way of drawers (which have additional subdivided trays and dividers), Clear Tilt Bins, shelves, and a worktop surface. Having all of their necessary “Tools” at their disposal, organized, and yet in one comprehensive location enhances their ability to deliver optimal care to the patient during surgical procedures. 

Avalo Anesthesia Cart supply storage controlled, optimized, and mobile – American River Medical

Summary

Anesthesia carts provide access control, mobility, and supply optimization. American River Medical has the expertise, resources, and experience to learn about your Anesthesia Cart System and offer a custom tailored True Solution to fit your needs. Critical care requires critical procedures, protocols, and systems. Old and outdated anesthesia carts may contaminate supplies, jeopardize compliance, prevent optimal delivery of care, or all of the above. An Anesthesia Cart Refresh with American River Medical may be just what the doctor ordered. 

To learn more about anesthesia carts 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.