Movable Wall Seclusion Room for Safe Patient Extraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing seclusion rooms pose a risk to both patients and staff during extraction due to the lack of a safe method for removing violent patients without increasing the risk of injury.
Innovation Solution
A seclusion room design featuring a movable wall that can be extended to create a narrow corridor, allowing extraction team members to enter behind the patient and use a hatch/shield to guide them safely out of the room, minimizing direct interaction and reducing injury risks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single door with observation window is used in the seclusion room, then the room structure is simple and staff can monitor the patient, but staff are exposed to violent injury when attempting to extract the patient
Solution Approach 1:
The room is divided into two separate doors: a main door for normal operations and an extraction door for safe patient removal. This segmentation allows different functions to be performed through different access points, protecting staff from violence during extraction while maintaining simple monitoring through the original observation window.
Solution Approach 2:
A movable partition wall acts as an intermediary element between the main room and extraction corridor. This wall can be positioned to create a protected extraction path, allowing staff to safely guide patients out without direct exposure to violent behavior, thus mediating the interaction between staff and patients during extraction.
2Productivity
If staff enter the seclusion room to extract violent patients, then the patient can be removed for treatment, but the risk of injury to staff increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The extraction function is separated from the main room by creating a dedicated extraction corridor with its own door and movable partition. This allows the extraction process to be taken out of the vulnerable main room environment and performed through a controlled, protected pathway that minimizes staff exposure to violence.
Solution Approach 2:
The extraction process is moved from a two-dimensional face-to-face interaction at the main door to a three-dimensional corridor space with controlled access. The movable partition wall creates a dimensional barrier that allows staff to approach patients from behind in a controlled manner, reducing the harmful face-to-face confrontation and minimizing injury risk.
3Ease of operation
If the seclusion room maintains a fixed open space, then patient movement is unrestricted, but staff cannot safely control or extract violent patients
Solution Approach 1:
The movable partition wall introduces dynamic reconfigurability to the room. The wall can be positioned in different locations to create various space configurations - open for normal patient containment, or narrowed to create a controlled extraction corridor. This dynamic adjustment allows the room to adapt to different operational needs while maintaining ease of control during extraction.
Data Source
AI summary
A seclusion room for patients having emotional disturbances has one moving wall positioned ahead of a fixed wall. The moving wall can be moved to an extended position to narrow the patient space leading to the main door to the room. A second door to the room enables an extraction team member enter the space between the fixed and moving wall, where the team member can remove a hatch from the moving wall and enter the space behind the patient. The team member can use the hatch as a shield to push the patient gently toward the exit door. A bench or seat disappears when the moving wall is moved to its extended position.