Until recently I was in your position, aspiring BME student, looking to create improvements on medical devices that would help folk. I got an EMT certification and joined a local service in the quest to support this goal and ended up moving away from it instead.
I suggest you make arrangements with a local fire/EMS service for the opportunity to observe a shift or tour a station, and try to ask EMS professionals in person.
Nothing we say will beat personal observation and experience.
When a patient is moved from home to hospital there are four critical states that body strain is high and injury is a concern during normal operation:
- Moving the patient from environment to stretcher. (Done mostly manually)
- Moving the patient on the stretcher into the ambulance. (Mitigated by stretcher, eliminated by powered lift.)
- Moving the patient on the stretcher from the ambulance. (Mitigated by stretcher, eliminated by powered lift.)
- Moving the patient from the stretcher onto an
adjustable hospital bed. (Done mostly manually, but with more people and a controlled environment, not as much of a deal.)
All of this needs to be done with regards to patient and provider safety and comfort. Focus the majority of your efforts in mitigating or eliminating the physical strain on patient and provider here.
ALL of the time periods in between are relatively easy on the patient/provider, but this is not to be ignored, as stretcher ride comfort is a big deal as well (independent suspension systems for the stretcher are more trouble than they are worth unless if you have gobs of money, so don't even think of going that route).
Powered stretchers with a stretcher lift on the ambulance is the way to go for now, as that removes half of our above concerns.
The recent development of self-loading stretchers is very interesting as well, though the problem of raising the stretcher to the required height remains.
Make the powered stretchers light, you will address #2 and #3 and do very well. Find a novel way to address #1 and #4 with another system and you will do even better.
Other little thoughts:
- The stretcher should be cleaned with disinfectant wipes after every transport. Make it really easy to clean, please. Reduce any edges, nooks, and crannies that will make it
annoying to wipe it down completely. The less annoying, the more people will clean it.
- Same spirit as above, the Strykers have these rubberized handles with a texture that promotes germ collection. A grippable non-porus surface is needed.
- Wheel dimensions are a big deal when trying to optimize the maneuverability of the stretcher and the comfort of the patient on it.
- Gotta have relatively quick and simple maintenance. Stryker struck just the right balance between robustness, weight, and time between stretcher servicing.
- It's gotta somehow fit in an elevator with a 200lb+ patient on it and 4-5 other people in the elevator. Stryker managed it with collapsible bits, you gotta be on par.
- Make it obvious which end is for the head and which is for the foot, sometimes we fuddle about this before placing the person on the stretcher, not a big deal.
- Have one of your project members relax on the floor and with only two people try to lift them 1-2 feet onto a sofa.
- When moving a patient to/from a bed of any kind, there is often an annoying gap caused by the dimensions of the stretcher that the patient had to traverse (best seen for yourself, some video footage of ER handoffs may give insight.) Eliminating that was a dream of mine.\
- CPR needs to be possible on your stretcher mattress.
- Design a cool sticker that outlines what is needed for manual operation of your spanking new powered stretcher. We will be spoiled by it and forget what to do in the event of no power.
Also, look to the UK. They have cool ramps. Just look up videos of the NHS.
) in my mind combine those Fernos with the power cot technology, perhaps so the actuator could raise or lower the overall cot height like on a Stryker without sacrificing the ability of the legs to fold under itself and load without lifting the whole shebang, and add some sort of padding to the sides to eliminate the possibility of the patient getting caught in those pinch points. Since the Ferno is already lighter, I bet adding that mechanism it would still be lighter than the Stryker power cot, really nice if the batteries fail (another reason why I would wanna keep those back saving folding legs lol)
