Towards Greener ICUs

Towards Greener ICUs: Redesigning the Use of Disposable Gloves

van den Berg, Lisanne (Student TU Delft)
Albayrak, A. (TU Delft Applied Ergonomics and Design)
Hunfeld, Nicole (Erasmus MC)
Diehl, J.C. (TU Delft Design for Sustainability)

Melles, M. (editor)
Goossens, R.H. (editor)

2024

This research and design project is part of the Green ICU initiative and focused on reducing the environmental impact of gloves at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Erasmus Medical Center (EMC). At the ICU of the EMC around 108 gloves are used per patient per day; to protect the user (healthcare staff) from infections. The high frequency of use and the resource-intensive production define disposable nitrile gloves as one of the ‘hotspots’ contributing to the environmental impact created by the ICU. This research and design project addressed the problem from three different perspectives: user-centred, product-centred and supply-centred. The extensive research resulted in three design directions on how to reduce the environmental impact of gloves. Subsequently, all insights from the research were brought together into five design building blocks. These design building blocks provided guidance for the design phase of the project. The project resulted in a redesign of the current glove dispensers. The final design is named ‘GloVe’, a vertical dispense system. By incorporating the five building blocks, the design can provide benefits for multiple stakeholders within the healthcare system. It reduces the environmental impact of gloves in the ICU by dispensing one glove at a time. Furthermore, the gloves are dispensed at the cuff, which comes in little contact with the patient. The vertical movement is pleasant to the user. The use of colour for different sizes makes it clear to the care assistant which box should go in which holder. Also, nurses will see at a glance, which size gloves they are dispensing. The small V-shaped opening makes the undesirable behaviour, of placing gloves back, almost impossible.

Design for sustainability
Gloves
User-centred
Medisign
Infection prevention
Intensive care unit

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e5c9aeb0-9c9b-4185-a806-d9d83d59b974

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32198-6_20

Springer, Cham

2024-05-05

978-3-031-32197-9

Springer Series in Design and Innovation: Proceedings of the International Conference on Healthcare Systems Ergonomics and Patient Safety, HEPS2022

HEPS2022, 2023-11-02 → 2023-11-04, Delft, Netherlands

Springer Series in Design and Innovation, 2661-8184, 30

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2024 Lisanne van den Berg, A. Albayrak, Nicole Hunfeld, J.C. Diehl