Emergency Crash Carts for Hospitals
Emergency crash carts for hospitals are an integral part of patient safety and good patient care. They are essentially a mobile storage platform that allows for the quick transport of life saving supplies and equipment to the location of a cardiac or respiratory emergency.
Emergency crash carts are stationed throughout the hospital in key locations that will allow the “Code Blue” team to respond rapidly to the location of a patient in distress. Because a “Code Blue” can occur anywhere in the hospital the carts need to be distributed at key locations (similar to fire extinguishers). Typically they are found at every nursing station on patient floors. They can also be found in the Emergency department, Critical care areas, O.R., recovery rooms, etc…
Not only must code carts be prolific throughout the hospital, they must be easy to maneuver. Ease of maneuverability is critical as “Time to treatment” is a critical factor in achieving good patient outcomes in a code. Waterloo offers aluminum code carts that are up to 30% lighter weight than steel cart options. This increases the cart’s maneuverability and helps to shorten response times.
Our carts also include steering casters that lock into a fixed position and perform the same function as a boat’s rudder. This helps the cart corner as it is being pushed and turned down hallways en route to the site of the code event.
Equally import to “Rapid response” is the identification of the Emergency cart by the code team. There are lots of procedure carts in a hospital hallway so it can be easy to confuse a “Suture cart” for an “Emergency cart” if they are the same color. That is why Waterloo offers emergency carts in ALL RED or ALL ELECTRIC BLUE to provide a cart that stands out from general procedure carts sitting in a hallway. ALL RED or ALL ELECTRIC BLUE carts make our code carts quick and easy to spot from any vantage point! Rapid identification leads to rapid response, which leads to improved patient outcomes!
Once at the site of the code, rapid access to the cart contents is vital. Waterloo’s standard aluminum and steel carts provide quick access to all drawers and they can be outfitted with divided trays to allow deployment of drawer contents to strategic locations at the patient’s side. Our ER-2000 cart takes this a step further and with the simple press of a centrally located button, the front of the cart opens to reveal all of the necessary supply trays that can quickly be removed and deployed to the patient’s side. These trays are clearly labeled as Airway, Breathing and Circulation so rapid identification of drawer contents is instinctual.
Our steel and aluminum emergency carts come standard with our centrally mounted transport lever-lock that can be secured by plastic tamper evident seals. Our unique transport lock insures that drawers stay closed not only during rapid transit to the code, but even when the cart is sitting idle and unattended in the hallway. This reduces the likelihood of pilferage and insures that all the supplies in a code cart are ready and available for use during an emergency.
Individual breakaway gate locks can be added to further secure cart contents. This provides a unique solution to cart restocking issues, in that now each drawer has its own tamper evident seal that notifies staff the drawer has been opened. This reduces the time needed to restock an entire code cart as only the drawers that were accessed need to be replenished. Estimates show it can take as much as an hour to restock an entire code cart. Through use of individual breakaway locks the code cart restocking time can be drastically reduced!
Properly accessorizing a code cart is just as important. Having accessories that allow the external mounting of vital lifesaving equipment such as defibrillators, portable suction pumps, oxygen tanks, sharps containers etc… makes a code cart dramatically more effective. Waterloo offers a full array of important external accessories for emergency carts.
Emergency crash carts for hospitals play a vital role in the health and safety of patients in hospital and other medical facilities. They are arguably the single most important cart in a hospital as their effective use, saves lives!