Curtains or Screens
Medical Curtains are one of the most recognised ways of providing privacy around beds in hospitals. Disposable Medical Curtains in particular will always be prevalent in Medical screening rooms, A+E rooms and other medical wards for highly infectious diseases.
However in more Long Term Care facilities, Traditional Hospital Curtains are no longer the go to product for patient privacy for a number of reasons.
With the increasing use of Ceiling Hoists for many patient handling activities, the clash between safe occupational health for nurses and dignified patient privacy has been fought out for years often to the cost of the nurse. Traditional Curtains use drop rods from the ceiling with often clashes with the moving rail of a ceiling hoist. Now there is a way to do both on a hospital ward and there are additional benefits to be had by using privacy ward screens instead of curtains.
Curtains are made of fabric and can become contaminated by gloves, hands, vomit, bugs, airborn bacteria, nasal droplets etc. It is very difficult to know visually when a curtain has become contaminated. With the EganMed privacy screen, all foreign matter is visible immediately because of the high gloss white finish.
Cleaning Curtains involves working at height. The Curtains must be taken down from a curtain rail located 2500mm from the floor. They must be sent to laundry and treated/handled they same way as hazardous medical waste.
A replacement set of curtains must be installed again, creating another working at height issue. The risk of falls when replacing 6 sets of curtains in a multi bed ward grows exponentially especially if the current infection control policies are implemented to the highest standard.
Cleaning Medical Privacy Screens is simple and easy to do. Just wipe clean with diluted bleach or alcohol.
Storage is often overlooked when designing hospitals. Storage space is at a premium in many older hospitals. Corridors were not designed for the additional comfort seating chairs and patient handling equipment that is now ubiquitous in Community Nursing Units. Storage of replacement Privacy Curtains is just another headache in a long line of issues that create more manual handling work for nurses.
Because EganMed screens are so easy to clean and fold away, there is no need for storage space for back up screens, excessive laundry costs which means a major saving on money on water, and electricity, (much better for mother nature) detergents that pollute the environment (another plus for mother nature) working at height issue and risk of falls manual handling issue with transport of fresh/used curtains
Ultimately the EganMed screen reduces cross contamination from its touch surfaces and reduces the workload on nurses. It enables the use of ceiling mounted patient handling equipment to work seamlessly around the bed space while providing total patient privacy.
