At MEDICA, Ian Bolland caught up with Guy Braverman, joint CEO and co-founder of GAMA Healthcare, to discuss its infection control products, in particular the Rediroom isolation unit.
Inevitably since the COVID-19 outbreak, being able to control the spread of infection and allow healthcare settings to maximise capacity has been a massive factor around the world.
One of GAMA’s main products on show at MEDICA was Rediroom, an isolation unit that can be erected around a patient within five minutes, allowing hospitals to increase isolation capacity.
Braverman explained that the idea behind the product originally came around when MRSA started to hit hospitals – and was developed by two Australians who developed a prototype over six years before working with GAMA.
“One of their wives is a nurse in A&E and she recalled that there weren’t enough isolation rooms for patients with infections,” says Braverman.
“The product was designed for contact and droplet precautions – the idea is in a multi-bedded bay, when someone has, for example, MRSA you should isolate them but often in hospitals there are not enough isolation rooms.
“The idea was if you are a multi-bedded bay and have an infection you need a side room but if there isn’t one, you’re going to pass on the infection to other patients in the bay. This can be put around a patient within five minutes while the patient is in bed. We developed it, COVID hit, and then there was the big demand.”
As the world was grappling with a new virus, there was a lot of emphasis on isolation as question marks remained over COVID-19’s transmission. Though it has since proven to be airborne, demand is still high for GAMA’s offering, as Braverman points out other conditions haven’t gone away.
“All the other hospital acquired infections, the multi-drug resistant bacteria and C. Diff, they’re all still there so there is still demand. Now the big worry is for norovirus and flu, which are much more contact and droplet transmission than airborne, so this room is much more suitable for those.
“If you’re in a multi-bedded bay and have diarrhoea and vomiting and should be put in a side room and there isn’t one then you can infect everyone in the bay. We can put this around the patient in five minutes.
“It gives increased flexibility to hospitals to have more isolation spaces. That’s what people are looking for, it’s that flexibility. If they don’t have enough side rooms, they have to take some patients out and judge which infection is worse. Having isolation space is becoming a very big headache and this gives them more isolation capacity.”
The product comes in two parts with a reusable trolley and single-use tent, containing windows and Velcro, which is disposed after patient use for infection control purposes. The single-use element does bring about the inevitable question of sustainability, but Braverman indicates there are avenues being looked at to make the product more sustainable, as well as preserving its infection control properties.
“If you did re-use, you would have to do a very deep clean and it would be very difficult to clean. There’s also evidence of if you were in a room where the patient had an infection, you’re up to five times more likely to get that infection because it is very difficult to clean the room. So, the safest infection prevention is to dispose of it.
“What we’re working on now is developing a plastic-free version and use all the materials that are plastic-free and more sustainable. The next versions are going to be much more sustainable and we’re going to be working towards having a plastic-free tent that you dispose of.”
