4 ms·

ICU is not trivial as everything is done quickly. At first thought, overhead cable gantries would be the best as you could quickly toss the cable/tube into it,

ICU is not trivial as everything is done quickly. At first thought, overhead cable gantries would be the best as you could quickly toss the cable/tube into it, but then the area around the patent would have tubes getting in the way, so some thought would have to be put into how the cables come out of the gantries. Other techniques such as pre-laid cable guards could work (a smaller version of the things cables go through to temporarily cross a road), but those people would still be tripping on, laying a cable or tube would be disruptive and they would be annoying to keep clean.

Balgair 7y ago
Thanks for the input! Yeah, overhead cables aren't the best, as a lot of the time, the length of the tubes and cables aren't long enought to do that. Also, yes, you'll end up with a 'beaded curtain' of tubes and stuff going into the patient. The idea of having everything routed under and then up to the bedside is not bad, though cable length is still an issue. It is a hard problem for sure.
- extrapickles 7y ago
  In an ideal world, the sizes of medical equipment be standardized, and have bays in the bed that they plug into, with the bed providing power. This would keep the tube and cable lengths short, and you could have a guard around the bed to keep people from accidentally leaning on the tubes or pulling them out. The control consoles would have to be external to the module though, as you don't want visiting kids (or knees) pushing shinny buttons under grandmas bed. Having the control panels be remote would help reduce the number of people needed to be next to the person, giving the people who are directly operating on the patient more room. This would also make patent transport easier, as you would no longer need a army of people to help move all the equipment keeping the patient alive or the possible errors that can be introduced by disconnecting and reconnecting the equipment.

Balgair 7y ago

Thanks for the input! Yeah, overhead cables aren't the best, as a lot of the time, the length of the tubes and cables aren't long enought to do that. Also, yes, you'll end up with a 'beaded curtain' of tubes and stuff going into the patient. The idea of having everything routed under and then up to the bedside is not bad, though cable length is still an issue. It is a hard problem for sure.

extrapickles 7y ago
In an ideal world, the sizes of medical equipment be standardized, and have bays in the bed that they plug into, with the bed providing power. This would keep the tube and cable lengths short, and you could have a guard around the bed to keep people from accidentally leaning on the tubes or pulling them out. The control consoles would have to be external to the module though, as you don't want visiting kids (or knees) pushing shinny buttons under grandmas bed. Having the control panels be remote would help reduce the number of people needed to be next to the person, giving the people who are directly operating on the patient more room. This would also make patent transport easier, as you would no longer need a army of people to help move all the equipment keeping the patient alive or the possible errors that can be introduced by disconnecting and reconnecting the equipment.