Don Hang works in a clinical engineering department in Ohio
and has seen some areas that could work a lot better with a little design
help—only he’s not sure how to go about it. He’s hoping his colleagues out
there have some ideas.
For instance, Don says that “instead of four wheels that go
any way they choose—often resulting in fighting a cart to the destination clinical
engineering department, he would like to be able to utilize a lockable, steerable
wheel caster on larger instruments like anesthesia, neonate/infant incubators,
warmers, etc to make the heavy carts move down hallways like a patient bed.”
Don adds, “I service a variety of equipment that needs to be
moved from the use area or department to our service department. Travel
includes hallways, elevators, ramps up or down, many of which are busy with
other carts with patients, visitors, and now the ‘scooters’ or ‘buggies’ some
folks use. When you are moving through you do not need the bother of steering
and controlling a larger, heavy wheeled cart. If the wheel caster unit on one
end or the other would be made to lock, it would make turning and steering so
much easier. With beds they are able to set a ‘steer’ mode and this makes
control easier.”
Any suggestions on how to implement this type of design?
Comment here with your ideas.
