Just 5 steps, and you have designed the perfect medical cart for your healthcare facility! Designing a medical cart can be a task that takes a considerable amount of time and effort, but it is crucial to understand how the layout, structure, and build of the cart will impact healthcare providers and patients for years to come. Crafting the right set-up of drawers, locks, color, and material can seem daunting as different combinations bring about different benefits. We have created this 5 step guide to help you design the perfect rolling medical cart for your healthcare facility.
Why is a Medical Cart so Important?
Medical carts provide the organization, storage, and maneuverability needed for equipment, medication, and supplies. Rolling medical carts are used for a variety of purposes in healthcare: emergency carts, anesthesia carts, isolation carts, procedure and treatment carts, general purpose carts, hyperthermia carts, pediatric crash carts, and suture storage carts to name a few. These carts allow healthcare personnel to focus all efforts and energy on providing quality care to patients. Designing your perfect Lakeside cart is easy with our Classic Series, so let’s go over these 5 steps to help you determine what you need in your medical cart.
1. Determine the Total Number of Drawers Needed
Depending on what you will be using the cart for, you will need different amounts of drawers and with that, you will need different drawer sizes to accommodate storage needs. Whether you want three large drawers, or you are in need of a cart that has ten small drawers, Lakeside classic carts allow you to design it your way! Our carts have four different drawer height options that can be configured in any way: three inches, six inches, nine inches, or twelve inches.
2. Select the Appropriate Cart Size to Accommodate Your Drawers
Now that you have determined how many three inch, six inch, nine inch, and twelve inch drawers you need, it is time to calculate the cumulative total drawer space needed and find which standard cart size your total drawer height adds up to. Our height options for classic medical carts are twenty-one inches, twenty-four inches, twenty-seven inches, or thirty inches with each having a width of thirty-two inches. Your total drawer space must equal one of these four standard height options.
3. Choose a Lock Type
Having some form of a lock on your cart is important to ensure the cart is only accessed by the appropriate healthcare staff. We have seven lock options to choose from to accommodate different needs:
- Standard Key Lock to lock the entire cart
- Breakaway Lock Bar to lock the entire cart – ideal for emergency carts that need to be accessed quickly
- Individual Breakaway Lock Bars to lock each drawer separately – ideal for carts used in emergencies
- Push-Button with key override feature
- Proximity Reader with Electronic Auto-lock and key override feature
- Electronic Auto-Lock with keypad and key override feature
- LPR-SW Optional Audit Software for use with Electronic locks & Proximity Reader – ensures authorized personnel are using the cart
4. Select a Color
Depending on the carts’ purpose, you may want to select a certain color. For example, emergency carts usually are red to indicate they are only to be used in emergency situations and an anesthesia cart is typically blue so healthcare workers know exactly what that cart is used for and the supplies it holds. While there are standard colors for some cart types, we have a full selection of twenty-three colors to choose from. These shell and drawer colors are comprised of an antimicrobial powder coating. Either choose one color for your entire cart or choose two colors, one for the shell and one for the drawers.
5. Specify Construction Material
Our classic carts have two options for the construction material, either steel or aluminum. Both provide you with a durable piece of equipment, but the aluminum option is 50% lighter which may be of benefit for carts that are moved often or need to be moved quickly in a short time frame. Lakeside medical carts are proudly made in the USA.
