Medical rolling carts, or mobile medical carts, enhance patient care in many ways. At Scott-Clark Medical, we offer many off-the-shelf types of carts, designed for a particular job, and available with individual packages to help do the job, but we can also custom-design carts for you.
The portability and accessibility of medical rolling carts improve the quality of patient care, allow doctors and nurses to spend more time with patients, and help engage the patient and his or her family.
Basic Carts
The basic types of carts generally fit into two categories: powered and unpowered. Powered carts have batteries or battery packs that can power equipment or devices used in a medical facility. Unpowered carts have no power sources integral to the cart.
The layouts of the carts, number of drawers and cabinets, size of the workspace, included peripherals, types of casters, construction material, and more depending on the brand and the brand’s product line.
Clinics can choose from hundreds of different options.
Powered Carts
The popularity of powered carts continues to increase. The ability to have reliable power available in any location in a hospital provides many advantages.
Battery packs on carts help provide uninterrupted power to computers and other essential equipment used by staff.
The ability to enter data when at the patient’s bedside reduces the chance of error decreases time spent going back and forth to a workstation entering information and speeds up access to the information for all caregivers.
To do this efficiently, a nurse or other healthcare practitioner needs reliable energy sources to keep the computers running.
Battery carts can also supply power to medical devices crucial to patient care.
Carts without Power
Carts without any power source allow doctors and nurses to perform many essential tasks wherever he or she may work at any given moment in the clinic.
For example, for emergency rooms, a properly equipped cart makes it easy for responding personnel to find what they need to stabilize a patient.
Peripheral Options for Medical Rolling Carts
Powered or unpowered, hospitals can add various peripherals to a medical rolling cart.
Peripherals can help personnel perform various tasks right at point-of-care quickly.
Some of the devices offered by mobile cart companies include chart holders, built-in large screen monitors, RFID readers, document scanners, IV poles, and biometric locks for cabinets or drawers.
Specialty Power Supplies
Most powered carts have lithium ion or similar rechargeable systems. Some carts use hot-swap battery packs to ensure a caregiver never loses power. As the remaining charge diminishes, the hot-swap system allows you to switch the battery out without turning off the computer or medical device. These external displays that will turn color whenever the remaining charge reaches a certain level, then start to flash as it gets closer to complete discharge.
Other power systems have proprietary charging stations permitting you to charge a battery in as little as two and a half hours. The stations also perform a litany of tests while doing so and indicate the status of each on a control panel.
Medication Carts
Medication carts are a subcategory of cart that many companies design and market specifically for storing and dispensing drugs.
These carts have more drawers and safety features than most other carts. Medication carts have lockable drawers with quick opening mechanisms to avoid delays in emergencies.
Options for these carts include proximity readers to inhibit unauthorized access and to have a record of who accessed the cart and when.
Customization
Hospitals can customize carts to fit the clinic’s requirements. For example, companies will customize a cart for pediatric wards, anesthetic use, emergency rooms, and more.
Final Word
Medical rolling carts make patient care more accessible, faster, and less stressful.
Mobile carts have become staples in every hospital, clinic and healthcare facility not only in the United States but throughout the world.