Battery-Powered Carts
Battery-powered mobile medical carts have transformed patient care in clinical settings. Using a mobile laptop cart, a medical professional can significantly improve efficiency, contact time with patients, medical record accuracy, patient satisfaction, and the medical facility’s profitability.
The versatility of battery-powered carts enables various medical professionals to use the same unit, and you can equip carts for the needs of specialty wards. The safety features on mobile medical carts make them a vital tool in the fight against infections. Their ability to carry a range of medical devices can have life-saving implications.
While battery-powered carts can benefit just about every ward in a medical facility, it is vital to customize your cart with the necessary peripherals to maximize your department’s benefits.
Long Life Battery Powered Computer Cart
Many older carts use batteries that only last for a few hours before you need to recharge them at a wall socket. Not only does this mean staff has to take carts off the ward, potentially endangering patient care, but it is inefficient as it reduces the amount of time medical professionals spend with their patients.
Because these older batteries can take several hours to charge, they are ineffective for a considerable amount of time during a shift. At Scott-Clark Medical, we use the latest iron phosphate lithium-ion batteries as opposed to standard lithium-ion batteries. Each charge provides between 6-10 hours of power for the cart, and we also use our Flexible Mobile Cart Power Technology (FMCPT) to ensure you are never without battery power during a shift.
The Scott-Clark FMCPT system uses one battery, while another is charging the cart. You can view the current battery power level on the visual readout. When one battery is running low on power, there are audio and visual cues advising it is time to recharge that unit.
There is no need for IT support to make the change. Because the cart user is likely to be a medical professional, our hot-swap battery system allows anyone to remove one battery and replace it with a fresh one in less than one minute. You can charge the battery with low power in as little as 2½ hours, ensuring you can keep your cart on the ward throughout your shift.
Although some people may refer to battery-powered medical carts as electric carts or electric-powered carts because the medical devices require electricity, it is the battery that is key to effectively and efficiently providing power.
A Scott-Clark Medical battery also has an extended lifespan, lasting for up to 5 years. This long-life feature means they are much more environmentally-friendly than older standard lithium-ion batteries that have an average lifespan of only 12 months.
For added safety, our intelligent BCS system continuously monitors the power level in the battery. If the system detects any danger to the user or an issue with the battery’s integrity, it immediately shuts the power off, safeguarding staff and patients.
If you currently use an older battery system, there is no need to buy a new cart because Scott-Clark Medical can retrofit carts with their latest FMCPT battery systems.
Benefits of Battery-Powered Carts
Using the latest battery technology is essential to ensure you can achieve the maximum benefit from your cart. When you invest in a battery-powered cart, it can bring excellent advantages for your staff and patients.
Patient Records on the Mobile Computer
Medical professionals need to spend as much time as possible with their patients. It is now an outdated approach to keep medical records in a central location, such as a computer bank in one room, and expect the physician to retrieve notes from that area. If documents are only available in a particular location, physicians may have to queue behind colleagues, which can significantly lower efficiency.
A physician using a battery-powered cart can take a laptop computer to the patient’s bedside. By accessing the notes when they are with the patient, they can discuss their diagnosis and treatment options. A battery-powered cart has an adjustable height feature so the physician can lower the laptop screen to the height of their patient’s bed.
By taking an open approach, showing the patient their medical file and x-rays and scans, the physician can establish a bond with their patient, improving the patient’s outcome. As laptops have internet capability, medical professionals can use diagrams and pictures from websites to help explain complex information, increase patient satisfaction, and help them make decisions about their care.
Improve Data Security
Medical facilities have a duty of care to their patients, including keeping their confidential data secure. Keeping a medical file on the end of a bed increases the risk of hospital visitors or other unauthorized personnel reading the notes. If a physician has to carry a paper file on their rounds, they could misplace the notes, potentially compromising the patient’s medical information.
A laptop computer has a password protection security feature that only grants access to those professionals with the right permissions. The physician can unlock the computer at the patients and enable the password protection feature as soon as they have finished updating the notes.
Improve Hospital Safety
There are many areas in a hospital where following safety protocols can save lives. Using a battery-powered cart, physicians can update notes at the bedside, so they are less likely to forget crucial information.
Because they add their notes personally, there is no need for an administrative assistant to duplicate information by copying paper notes on to a computer. If an administrator can not read the physician’s handwriting or made a mistake, this could also have life-threatening implications.
The internet-enabled laptops can instantly update the new notes from the physician to the hospital’s central computer database. This ability could be vital, as the next professional to attend with the patient has all the information at their fingertips. There is no lag time between one professional adding the notes and the available data being ready for colleagues to view when they visit the same patient.
Medical professionals work with medications, and this is a potentially dangerous aspect requiring particular expertise. It is inefficient for a physician to visit the hospital pharmacy each time they need medication. Should the medical professional take several medications on to the ward for the patients they expect to see on their rounds, it may be that the pharmaceuticals are not secure.
A battery-powered cart is ideal for increasing efficiency and for preventing unauthorized access to medications. You can equip your unit with biometric locking drawers, and admission is only possible for those with the correct encrypted key cards. A proximity scanner detects if an authorizes professional is within a preset distance and opens the drawer.
It is possible to have different authorizations for various colleagues. A physician may require access to some medications that only they are trained to use, but a nurse can also access other pharmaceuticals and sharps. Because the drugs are available at the patient’s bedside, the patient promptly receives their medication, and the physician can confirm they receive the correct dosage.
Barcode scanners detect each medication the physician removes from the cart, the date and time, and the professional’s name. The records automatically update with the central database, reducing a colleague’s risk of prescribing the same medication. These records are also an excellent safety feature for staff, as they can prove they provided the correct medication at the right time.
Contact Scott-Clark Medical For More Information
There are a wide variety of benefits to using the latest and most efficient battery-powered carts. Other industries use our FMCPT battery systems to power heavy-duty, variable speed, material handling equipment outside the medical profession.
The extended lifespan of a Scott-Clark Medical iron phosphate lithium-ion battery makes it cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The batteries can operate for long periods and recharge quickly, allowing your staff to make the most of innovative technology.
For a consultation and a free quote, contact the Scott-Clark Medical team at (512) 756-7300.