Services
Custom cart design
Medical device manufacturers, hospitals and physicians come to us to design custom mobile medical carts, from the first sketch to training, implementation and use.
Choose exactly what the cart needs
Call our experts and we will put together the right cart for your need and setting. You choose:
- Configuration
- Size
- Material
- Access control
- Casters
- Accessories
- Finishes
From concept design to training, implementation and use, American River Medical is your custom medical cart design partner. We design under the name TAGCarts.
Who we design for
- Device makers (OEM): a cart built around your equipment.
- Hospitals: carts for a new building, a new workflow or a department nothing on the market fits.
- Physicians and clinicians: ideas from the people who use carts all day.
Our design
The TAHOE cart
The TAHOE was designed in 2020 by nurses, clinicians and designers in Berkeley, California, in response to nurses asking for more from their carts. It is named for the Lake Tahoe Basin. Asked why they want it, nurses tell us simply: “Because you listened and included us in the design.”
- Lightweight (94 lbs) with 6-inch premium locking and tracking casters
- Germ Guard handles for infection control; full-length, elevated drawer handles
- Low center of mass for stability; wall bumper
- High back splash, workspace extension and adjustable telescoping IV tower
- WiFi, a wireless charging surface, motion lighting and touchless/keyless access
- Auto-closing, heavy-duty drawers, and no beeping entry buttons or alarm fatigue
- Push handle on the left, right or both sides
TAGCarts are made of highly recyclable material, partly from recycled water bottles, fishing nets and ocean-bound waste. Assembly, packaging and order fulfillment are done by US veterans and Americans with disabilities at PRIDE Industries in California.
Details
Projects
Projects
We take on projects that move the whole medical cart industry forward, and we welcome collaborators.
Medical cart mobile power systems
The power systems on carts run computers, scanners and locks, and they are a daily source of interruptions, safety risks and cost for nurses. Our project, and a patent-pending invention, aim to fix that. In 2019 the W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University ran a marketing research study on it with us.
HEROCart single-patient carts
A patent-pending family of pop-up, recyclable, biodegradable carts and workstations for single-patient use and surge capacity: triage, alternative care sites and emergency response.
Defining “medical cart”
In 2011 Tagg Neal found that “medical cart” had never been defined, so we wrote a definition and published it here. The project put it in front of the dictionary editors at Merriam-Webster.
Medical cart membership club
An idea from 2018: a membership network for healthcare professionals focused only on medical carts, with content, services and offers from many brands rather than one.
Have a cart in mind that doesn’t exist yet?
Tell us who will use it and what it needs to do. We will talk it through and show you how we would design it.