Privacy Smartglass for hospitals

[Northerner]

The NHS has launched a range of initiatives including the HCAI Technology Innovation Programme, which aims to speed up the adoption of technologies to combat infections. As part of the programme since 2004 it set up the Rapid Review Panel (RRP) to provide independent advice on technologies that may be of value to the NHS in reducing infection.

The study showed that CDIFF, MRSA and VRE can be found on hospital privacy curtains. More worrying, researchers found that these bugs transfer onto the hands of people who handle the contaminated curtains, suggesting that health care workers who operate these may be spreading bugs. The study found that 43 percent of privacy curtains were contaminated with VRE, 22 percent of them harboured MRSA and four percent tested positive for CDIFF.

The findings, published in the Journal of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, have put contamination and privacy control in the spotlight. At the same time the healthcare industry is in the midst of substantial refurbishment projects which demand innovative design and products as hospitals continue to modernize.

http://www.glassonweb.com/news/index/22540/

Makes sense! 🙂

 

[Vicsetter]

I would have thought that on wards the privacy curtains couldn't easily and cheaply be replaced with solid smart glass partitions, which still need cleaning! Maybe a cheap paper privacy curtain which is disposed of when the bed linen is changed would be a better alternative.

 

[trophywench]

Have you priced up good quality curtain material recently Vicsetter?

I'd like new curtains in my living room but for decent stuff (ie will launder and iron and not shrink) you are talking £25 plus a metre - then there's linings, and header tape and making up (decent sewing thread is nearly £3 a reel) - you have not been able to even get metal curtain rail for years and the hooks are like 10p each except you have to buy a bag of 10.

So frankly, for all that material, professional making up, industrial curtain rail, fitting etc - it's probably as cheap to fit glass, but wouldn't everyone feel as if they were in isolation?

 

[HERE TINTIN]

Could be a naff idea but what about anti-bacterial srays, could the curtains not be regularly sprayed or would that be too big a job and maybe not even possible, I am just guessing.

 

[Vicsetter]

Have you priced up good quality curtain material recently Vicsetter?

I'd like new curtains in my living room but for decent stuff (ie will launder and iron and not shrink) you are talking £25 plus a metre - then there's linings, and header tape and making up (decent sewing thread is nearly £3 a reel) - you have not been able to even get metal curtain rail for years and the hooks are like 10p each except you have to buy a bag of 10.

So frankly, for all that material, professional making up, industrial curtain rail, fitting etc - it's probably as cheap to fit glass, but wouldn't everyone feel as if they were in isolation?

I certainly wasn't thinking about curtain material! I do know the cost, (I run a Guest House!), but was thinking of some kind of bio-degradeable paper product. I don't think the NHS would buy curtain hooks by the bag!.
They don't have to be strong just opaque. Doctors don't examine you on a towel or sheet but on a paper towel, which is then thrown away.
P.S. NHS modesty curtains don't have linings, but you could make them out of just lining material ( only £2-£5/metre).

I suspect you have not considered the cost of a) the glass, b) the electrical controls and c) rewiring. And when fitted you still have to clean it properly. And what happens when some clumsy porter hits it with a bed - smashing. I can see places in hospitals where it would be useful, but not on general wards. What happens when a number of staff have to work on a patient at the same time - hard to do with fixed glass screens, which would also stop interaction between patients.

I didn't invent it, but as you ask, have a look at this video about a micro antibacterial disposable hospital curtain that kills the stuff the report was complaining about, looks to me like newspaper reporting again (http://www.allinonemedical.com/HAI.html).

 

[trophywench]

No no Vicsetter, they have to be happy calming colours without being garish - for the morale of the inmates doncha know? 😉

Meself I'd bring back proper nurses uniforms and really pretty caps - I think all that long hair swishing about is a REALLY BAD idea, and though the smell of disinfectant was utterly vile, perhaps they should try some of that again combined with cleaners who blooming-well clean, instead of half hearted wimps using a machine that doesn't touch the edges or the corners and who don't/can't?

 

[trophywench]

Incidentally, we have a friend who was a nursing sister in the TA and a Major to boot. She was deployed in the Gulf War where the nurses accommodation was in bare breeze block structures, with just square holes for windows - no glass. She wrote and said they'd managed to get some green surgical drapes to cover the windows for modesty's sake.

So we had a conflab and sent her a quantity of William Morris design (by Sanderson) curtain tiebacks in toning colours. They all loved em and it did reportedly, actually boost morale !