UK hospitals deploy Aus-designed pop-up patient isolation rooms

An instant patient isolation room that can be deployed in five minutes is being used by hospitals throughout the UK to isolate patients with COVID-19.

Invented in Australia and manufactured by GAMA Healthcare, the Rediroom is designed to help healthcare workers control outbreaks and reduce the spread of infection. As a temporary and portable device, it can be easily deployed in a number of areas across a hospital and deconstructed when it isn’t needed — saving hospitals valuable space and time.

The Rediroom can be used across hospitals — including multi-occupancy bays, emergency departments and triage areas — as well as aged-care facilities, airports and military bases.

Alongside six National Health Services in the UK, Joondalup Health Service in WA is the first hospital in Australia to implement Rediroom. Facilities across SA, NSW and Victoria are also evaluating the device for isolating potential COVID-19 patients.

Hands-free entry and exit and built-in PPE are incorporated in the design, which assists in isolating infectious patients under contact or droplet precautions. This means that beyond COVID-19, Rediroom could potentially reduce the spread of common contact and droplet pathogens, including influenza, MRSA, diphtheria, C. difficile and mumps.

Nurse and co-inventor of the device Anna Ballantyne commented, “Rediroom was birthed out of the need to isolate patients for safety in regard to transmissible infectious organisms. Healthcare workers always aim to provide the best care for our patients and community. Working in emergency departments, I saw first-hand the domino effect on patients and staff of not having enough ‘single’ — contact and droplet — isolation rooms.

“Rediroom can be taken and used anywhere you need it — general wards, intensive care and emergency departments. For me, this helps flow within a hospital and means we can use multi-bay rooms for multiple people while safely isolating patients at the same time.”

Professor of Nursing at the University of Newcastle Brett Mitchell was responsible for testing the development of the temporary isolation room concept and providing infection control expertise.

“COVID-19 has really enforced the focus of my research, which is preventing infections from occurring in the first instance,” he said.

“The isolation room allows for rapid isolation of patients in situations where there is no other facility to do so.

“It’s great to see the rollout of Rediroom in hospitals in the UK and Australia. In the long term, I hope to see Rediroom being used by health services where current isolation requirements exceed demand.”