Curtains have long been the default space-divider in hospitals and many other healthcare facilities. But they are not changed often and studies have shown that 90% of curtains in hospitals are contaminated with pathogens within a week of installation.
Twelve years before SAARS COVID-19 so dramatically showed us the need for hygienic space dividers, KwickScreen founder, Michael Korn, started looking for a way to address the problems of hospital-borne infections.
He received his engineering degree from Cambridge University, and then a masters from the Royal College of Art where his interest in infection control started. Today he is the Chief Innovation Officer at the UK-based KwickScreen and leads the R&D team.
From the outset the goal was to design a solution that would provide a physical barrier, engineered to have a single touch-point and surfaces that are smooth, non-porous and can be easily cleaned after every use. The resulting product achieves those goals with many added benefits growing out of that seminal design idea.
For example, numerous studies have shown the healing role that artwork plays in patients’ mental and physical recovery. During development of the Kwickscreen, the search for a material that was flexible enough to be retractable resulted in a material that could also be printed upon. Combined with modern large-scale laser jet printing machines, the screen material provides a “canvas” that can be customized ad infinitum. The result is that since its founding, KwickScreen has placed over 60km of artwork in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) spaces; introducing calming scenery or cheerful environments for patients and staff.
In a Zoom interview Alan Murrell, KwickScreen CEO said, “At KwickScreen we have designed solutions that help make spaces more flexible, better for infection control and improve sustainability in healthcare.”
The solution they designed is a portable, retractable screen that can extend up to 9 feet. It rolls out of and into a slim, lightweight aluminum stanchion that can be either entirely freestanding or with one stanchion attached to the wall. Casters on the bases of the stanchions make it completely mobile, which makes rearranging a space as simple as retracting the screen and rolling it to its new location; unless of course you’ve chosen to attach one end to the wall.
A KwickScreen brochure aptly states, “Healthcare is changing globally as populations age and hospitals face unprecedented challenges – their spaces need to be versatile and reconfigurable. KwickScreen’s modular design responds to the needs of healthcare; what may be an infusion bay today could be transformed into a stroke unit in six months’ time.”
As you might imagine, when designers involved in planning education spaces, hospitality spaces or offices see KwickScreen they immediately see opportunities to take advantage of its inherent mobility and flexibility in those environments as well as in healthcare.
So retractable, mobile screens extendable up to 9 feet, 65 or 75 inches high, but do they really improve infection control? In the Zoom interview I asked if any studies had been done to actually compare KwickScreen with curtains.
Alan Murrell said, “Indeed! Here are some of the key points from the data of a trial done at University College London Hospital NHS trust in London, UK.
- 8x more bacteria on a hospital curtain than a KwickScreen
- In one case, where both the curtains and KwickScreens were fully extended, there was 35x more bacteria on a curtain than a KwickScreen.
- Even more shockingly, the center surface of a particular KwickScreen had absolutely no counts of bacteria, however, the patient curtain had 130 counts of bacteria when both were fully extended.
- KwickScreen has a single touchpoint whereas you can touch the curtain anywhere, and often do when the curtain is extended – the single touchpoint is 4.3x less contaminated than a patient curtain.
- In one case, the touchpoint had no counts of bacteria, however, curtains had 56 counts.
- Of the 30 screens studied, 20% showed no bacterial counts on the center surface, compared with only 3.3% of patient curtains.
- Enterococcus bacterial cause difficult to treat infections in the hospital-acquired setting. – 10% of curtains were shown to have enterococcus present, however, it was only detected on 3.3% of KwickScreens.
- Of 30 screens tested, there was absolutely no detection of Staphylococcus aureus – some strains of which are highly resistant to antibacterial treatments; making it one of the most important bacteria that cause disease in humans. If Staphylococcus aureus enters the bloodstream it can lead to sepsis and even subsequent death.
- The top 5 most contaminated hospital curtains saw 359 counts of bacteria cumulatively, whereas the top 5 most contaminated KwickScreens only saw 71 counts of bacteria cumulatively.
KwickScreen has deeply penetrated the market in the UK where every NHS Trust in the UK has deployed KwickScreens.
While they’ve only just begun to work in the U.S., there are already 230 hospitals using KwickSceen here, including the VA Medical Center, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente, Stanford Health, Boston General, Mayo Clinic Health System and Walter Reed.
My guess is that’s about to change dramatically, because as you may have read in officenewswire, Mr. Murrell told me they’ve signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Steelcase Health, giving them access to the enviable resources of Steelcase and its enviable dealer network.
In a telephone interview Jim Stelter, vp of the education, healthcare and small business vertical markets at Steelcase said, “We’re very excited to bring KwickScreen to the U.S. market. It’s an exceptional product with great potential in all our verticals. And we’re planning a major launch program for the near future to really get our dealers turned on to it and get the sort of penetration here that it has earned in the UK.”