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Spring 2023

Linen Cart

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Agenda

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Introductions
Problem

User story
Context

Market opportunity
Competitive landscape
Refined problem and considerations
Proposed solutions

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Team

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Team members

Graduate students

Carolyn Spencer EMBA 1st year cs5813@rit.edu

Lamya Hamad EMBA 1st year lah7426@rit.edu

Sarah Baxter CAD 1st year srb3110@rit.edu�

Undergraduate students

Bennett Sarowitz CAD 2nd year bas5142@rit.edu

Bhanusree Chelli Saunders 2nd year bc7520@rit.edu

Eli Rosen CAD 2nd year ear8364@rit.edu

Team Coach (RIT Faculty)

Lara Goulart lcfaa@rit.edu

Team Advisor (Client)

Melissa Natoli melissa.natoli@rochesterregional.org

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Client-defined problem

Linen carts have an opening that doesn’t easily allow access to the bottom and back corners of the cart.

The u-shape opening does not allow for ease of access and causes back, shoulder and leg strain to get all linen out of carts.

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User scenario: Susan’s story

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Susan Browne | Sterile Tech

Age: 57

Occupation: Sterile Tech

Wage (FTE): $15.50/ hr; 18 hours/ day; 7 days/week

Employer: Rochester Regional Health

Hospitals have linen bins weighing up 500 lbs daily
She loads and unloads linen ~ 50 lbs, 50 - 90 times daily
She may have to do this with about 6 bins a day
Reaching into these bins is hard and inaccessible
There have been cases of injury such as the bin falling on someone or the someone falling into the bins

Lifting linen out of the bin when soiled can be extraneous and cause a lot of strain on the back and arms
These bins have caused bruising at the rib cage area from bending over them

Stakeholders: sterile techs, nurses, housekeeping

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Impact

Repetitive laundry work leads to significant risk of injury and musculoskeletal disease in upper limbs and lower back

23.8% instance of shoulder pain and a 42.9% instance of lower back pain

RRH employees: 17 FTE paid $50,000 = $850,000 per year cost

The associated cost of overall occupational injuries incurred in the Ontario healthcare sector is estimated at $2.5 billion annually (Almost et al. 2018)

SRI

2500000000 / 295=

8,474,576.271186441 per year approximately

One hospital in Oklahoma processes more than 5.2 M lbs of clean and dirty linens annually

5 employees responsible for linens pushed or pulled
60 carts daily weighing up to 700 pounds each
Each employee moved approximately 1.1 M lbs (561.5 tons) in carts not ergonomically safe

An Ergonomics Guides for Hospital Laundries

https://lni.wa.gov/safety-health/_docs/AnErgonomicsGuideforHospitalLaundries.pdf

Assessment of the Effectiveness of a Laundry Cart Modification to Enhance Lifting Biomechanics

https://islandscholar.ca/islandora/object/ir%3A24000/datastream/PDF/download

How to Avoid Workman’s Comp in Commercial Linen Collection

https://www.ek-tech.com/how-to-avoid-workmans-comp-in-commercial-linen-collection/

Linen lift teams lighten the load

https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/103680-linen-lift-teams-lighten-the-load

Data collected by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario shows that the female healthcare workers ranking higher than all other occupations for lost-time claims

For example, one hospital in Oklahoma processes more than 5.2 million pounds of clean and dirty linens every year. The five employees responsible for linens pushed or pulled about 60 carts daily weighing up to 700 pounds each. For the year, each employee moved approximately 1.1 million pounds (561.5 tons) in carts not designed prevent significant ergonomic injury.

Who is the user for your design? (Profile all stakeholders)
Show relevant images representing their lives
Consider:

Demographics

Persona’s image
Name
Age
Occupation

Characteristics

Job
Lifestyle
Activities
Attitudes
Habits & behaviors
Context/environment relevant to the problem

Needs and goals

Why is the user engaged with the product or service?
What is the problem?
What benefits are desired?

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Proposal 1: Sketches

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Proposal 1

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Proposal 1: Self-Raising Mechanism

REFINEMENTS +

FURTHER INVESTMENT

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Context

Clean laundry loaded

30 minutes each floor, 15- 25 minutes for appropriate elevators

2. Distribute the clean laundry to each unit

may run out of linen
multiple trips to do each article

This is a visual representation of the daily tasks that a sterile tech or nurse would perform in linear order.�This is assumes that the soiled linens are already taken care of.

30 minutes each floor, 15- 25 minutes for appropriate elevators

3. Bring bin down to be sanitized

30 minutes each floor, 15- 25 minutes for appropriate elevators

4. Get clean laundry and distribute as needed

Repeat process about 6 times each day

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Refined problem definition

Challenges

Safety of users collecting and distributing linen
Wasted time and money spent between collecting and distributing soiled/clean linen �

Context

Heavy, open containers used to deliver linens
Containers hold one type of material at a time
Multiple trips to pick up linen + 30-min wait for new linen/bring soiled linen

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Overall industry

	Hospital	Hotel, Motels, and Resorts	Nursing home
Amount in US	6,093	184,596	26,514
Growth YoY	2.6%	9.4%	2%
Spend on laundry �(per yr, per location)	$489,000	$125,000	$60,000
Total spend in US �(per year)	$2.9 billion	$2.3 billion	$1.6 billion

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Competitive benchmarking

	Open bin	Drawers	Utility cart	Wire cart
Price	$920.00	$2,098.88	$1,204.75	$297.32
Size	43 ct. ft	24” drawer space	34-7/8"W x 32-1/2"H x 17-1/8"D	36"W x 72"H x 18"D
Pros	Open space	Organized contents	Organized contents Easily visualize contents	Organized contents Easily visualize contents
Cons	Unorganized content Risk of falling over Cannot easily visualize contents Difficult to clean Requires bending	Defined space Holds limited content Cannot see content inside Risk of injury on edges Difficult to clean	Not enclosed - risk of contents falling off Holds limited content	Risk of injury on edges

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Technological requirements

Ergonomically safe design: lower risk of injury and fewer sick leaves�
Ease of use during transportation �
Materials: Lightweight, cost-effective, and easy to sanitize �
Space-saving modular design

Smaller bins
Ability to latch bins together

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Divergent Concept Ideation

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Proposal 2: Experimental 3D prototypes

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Proposal 2: 3D prototypes

Eli

Latch offering modular connectivity - initial shift can bring multiple carts up for the first round of the day, and then the later shifts can bring one
Flexibility for the hospital to order what they need – most or less waste receptacles or more storage bins
cart would be a bit 4.5 feet tall, and 2.5 ft square
tarp around it
the soiled laundry bag would be able to come out the side, rather than lifting from the top.
the bins could be different types of linen, ex. socks, sheets, etc.

these could be in color-coded bags
or the bins could be color-coded
this would make it easier to grab the right linens quickly.

This solution should address time, money… also safer for Susan

We expected that the hospital can eliminate several FTE roles given time saved
Also minimize worker comp. filings based on associated injuries with the associated, saving money for the hospital
The soluton also applies not just to hospitals but for consideration in similar industries

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Recommended next steps

1. Research the assumptions and hypotheses

2. In-person interviews and in-hospital research

3. Receive customer feedback

4. Dive deeper into competitive analysis

5. Explore cost-benefit analyses

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Spring 2023

Questions?

Carolyn Spencer, Lamya Hamad, Sarah Baxter, �Bennett Sarowitz, Sri Chelli, Eli Rosen