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Choosing The Right Mobile Cart


July 1, 2008

The plethora of mobile cart vendors makes it difficult to choose the right device. “It’s hard for hospitals to separate the vendors out there the first time they look at mobile carts,” says Keith Washington, vice president and general manager at Flo Healthcare, a Norcross, Ga.-based vendor of the devices. “The first time they choose a device it’s more of an education for them. But once they understand their requirements and costs better, they often have to go back for a second- or third-generation deployment.”

Marketers are attempting to distinguish their products in a saturated market.

For example, Flo portays its carts as integrated workstations that are configured with a predetermined combination of hardware, peripherals and other accessories designed to work for specific applications.

Similarly, Artromick International, Columbus, Ohio, says its carts are specifically designed to reflect the individual clinical workflow, maneuverability and applications that each of its customers need.

Many mobile cart vendors boast that their products are more lightweight and have a longer battery life than their competitors’ devices or previous versions of their own hardware.

“There are still issues of how lightweight carts are and how nurses are going to get them to a bedside,” says Gregg Malkary, managing director at Spyglass Consulting, Menlo Park, Calif. “But it’s really become a cultural or workflow issue now.”

For example, the carts that Camden-Clark Memorial Hospital initially implemented were deemed to be too big and bulky to maneuver comfortably by nurses, says Kerry Cottrell, R.N., nursing informatics analyst. So the Parkersburg, W.Va.-based hospital purchased more lightweight carts its second time around, she adds.

And Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga, Tenn., chose its third generation of mobile carts because they have battery technology that enables nurses to monitor how power is being used, says Laurene Vamprine, interim CIO. Now they can determine whether a cart has been routinely charged, or had its battery drained down all the way, which can affect its performance, she adds.

The carts, however, are getting better overall and are easier to reconfigure, which can help health care organizations better leverage their investment in the devices, says Malkary, the consultant.

“Hospitals might want to use a single vendor for all their mobile carts so they can have the ability to reconfigure the devices on the fly,” he says. “But the mobile cart on the whole is still a strong, safe investment for health care organizations.”

(c) 2008 Health Data Management and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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