Design for Emergency Cart Using a Medium-Agent Function

Abstract

Emergency cart is a medical assistance equipment, which is used from the point when an emergency patient arrives at the emergency room of a hospital in an emergency situation. For the resuscitation, medical treatment has to be processed in the shortest time and in the most efficient movement. Thus, a sufficient functionality and the design of the storage space that would suit each aim of the task is required. This emergency cart design has been conducted over the period of one year, starting in March 2003, with emergency room at Tsukuba University Hospital as the main field, and in corporation with Hitachi Regional Technical Support Center, by applying the new idea of "Medium-Agent Function" (fig-1). In the design process, the specific nature of the ward was understood, and problems and artificial errors in the usage of existing emergency carts were found and noted. Then the new design was compared with the existing carts by simulating the actual situation in the intensive care unit (ICU), and was refined to a high quality prototype. This was a good opportunity to learn technical knowledge that is specific to the specialized medical field. Designing in the future should be considered not as the final artifact, but as a process to output the final results.