Design of an Automated Over-bed Hospital Meal Cart for Public Hospitals

Abstract

Hospital meal carts are used to deliver meals, drugs and some other materials to patients in the hospital environment. These carts which are moved manually by operators, the health workers, mostly do not comply with ergonomics guidelines and physical requirements of the equipment users in terms of anthropometry data of the region thus increasing the risk of musculoskeletal disorder among the meal cart users. Based on the preliminary study, most operators expressed the feeling of fatigue and postural discomfort in the shoulders, arms, back and thighs as a result of moving the hospital meal cart around the hospital environment. Also, patients who are limited in terms of sitting and standing needs this for their comfort and assistant. In order to ease this discomfort, an automated over-bed hospital table was designed using the adult working class anthropometry data of Nigeria. The cart has an adjustment feature of forth and back movement as well as height adjustment mechanism to suite the use of the patient. The responses obtained from ergonomic evaluation of the re-designed hospital meal carts were analyzed using SPSS to obtain the non-parametric Chi-Square test as well as the median and interquartile range. The test however showed significant difference when p < 0.050, hence the redesign is justified. The table can be operated by the patient with little or no assistance hence will reduce fatigue and risk of musculoskeletal disorder among the meal cart users. Keywords— Anthropometric data, Discomfort, Ergonomics, Hospital and Meal cart.