Development of mobile negative pressure ward for critically infected COVID-19 patients

[Photo provided = KAIST]

Amid simmering the shortage of negative pressure beds in hospitals since the third wave of pandemic started last early November has been increasing the number of severe cases a mobile negative pressure ward was developed by KAIST research team to resolve the shortage. A negative pressure ward is a vital facility for treatment for patients with serious infectious diseases.

The research team led by Prof. Take-jin Nam of the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST has developed ‘Mobile Clinic Module’ (MCM) which they have been researched since previous years July as a part of a research development project for Korean type of quarantine technology ran by the Science Technology New Deal Project Group responding to COVID-19 and finally started a demo operation.

MCM is a negative pressure isolation facility with high-grade medical equipment that it has feature of quickly available to transform or convert for using and it should be used with existing hospitals’ infrastructure such as diagnosis test radiology medical supplies managing medical records and offering patients’ meals.

The team has started simulating a demo group of patients including medical staff and laypeople checking the entire treatment process not only including medical activities but also checking patients’ daily lives since last December 28 when they set up a ward equipped with total 4 intensive care units in Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences (KIRAMS) in Nowon-gu Seoul. After they conduct the demo operation by the 15th of this month and verify its usability stability and satisfaction of medical staff and patients they are planning for commercialization officially.

The MCM developed by Prof. Nams research team is about 450㎡ acreage and is 15m by 30m. The MCM is equipped with an intensive care unit with negative pressure facilities four negative pressure rooms a nursing station and dressing room and also a storage room for various medical equipment and medical examination rooms.

The MCM equipped with facilities such as negative pressure frames air tents and functional panels can be used by converting into negative pressure wards or screening stations. Moreover it is practical to transform typical intensive care units to negative pressure units. Hereby if the MCM is commercialized it would be a great help to resolve the lack of negative pressure beds for COVID-19 patients.

The existing assembly ward for infectious diseases that utilizes containers or tents costs an arm and a leg in construction and securing the supply of equipment. Functionally it is just a temporary camp and these are considered as its shortcoming. Therefore it is beyond its capacity to be used for professional medical facilities.

Prof. Nam’s team succeeded in developing MCM technology which makes it able to build stable negative pressure rooms with minimal frames by designing ‘negative pressure frame’ which is an independent equipment forming safety negative pressure environment and combining it to module type structure connecting it to ‘air tent’.

The mechanism is that the negative pressure frames adjust pressure in both sides and make two air tents (e.g. equipment store areas and hospital rooms) to negative pressure. Medical facilities or basic hospital supplies needed for intensive care can be built by combining ‘functional panels’ to the tents. Moreover it can be used as a medical facility depending on its purpose such as negative pressure wards screening stations negative pressured intensive care units negative pressured general patients’ rooms by combining the modules. An official of the team said “It takes about 14 days to produce hospital rooms modules and transportation and installation are possible in 5 days.”

Particularly the basic unit of MCM consisting of equipment store area and hospital rooms can be built in 15 minutes when the module materials are prepared on the site. Additionally an official research team mentioned that comparing to the case of enlarging the previous assembly wards it can save about 80% of the cost. Furthermore one of the great advantages is that since it can be stored more than 70% less in volume and weight it is able to be saved as military supplies and installed quickly in case of pandemics unlike the typical assembly wards which is hard to store after the pandemic ends. The module packages can be shipped in air so it can be expected to export the entire wards.

Prof. Nam’s team which has user-centered system design expertise accumulated over years has been proceeding their research aimed for development of a safe negative pressure wards. Comprehensively considering functionality economic feasibility and utility for actual users such as medical staff and patients since previous years July.

They also conducted the research collecting the needs from the sites such as understanding of the treatment process for infectious disease through cooperation with medical staff including medical advice for designing negative pressure wards at the same time in order to satisfy convenience emotional experience and originality. Therefore they finally succeeded in producing the modular system affiliating with existing medical resources through coming up with the ideas of various functional panels supporting medical activities and patients’ daily lives and also construction of wards conjugating the existing unused spaces in hospitals such as parking lots empty lots and gyms.

Especially prof. Nam’s team with the cooperation with medical staff from KIRAMS developed ‘Standard Operation Procedure (SOP)’ for mobile hospitals to secure safety in the process of responding to infectious diseases and increased the field availability for medical staff who manage mobile negative pressure wards for the first time.

Dr. Min-soo Cho (director of emergency medical care) of KIRAMS explained “It is designed and produced for patients and medical staff to treat severe patients in a safe environment as a response to COVID-19.” He also added “The mobile negative pressure wards installed in KIRAMS can function as medical team training center once it expands its domestic and abroad supplies and supporting operation is available on the actual medical sites if it is necessary.”

This research of Prof. Nam’s team was supported by the Science and Technology New Deal Project in KAIST responding to COVID-1. They completed their development of wards that can be clinically operated from user research to design and making prototype in six months.

[Photo provided = KAIST]

Website: : http://www.wip-news.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=4109