Improving Patient Care: A Multifunctional Nursing Workstation

The nationwide shortage of registered nurses is projected to worsen over the next ten years. Since fewer nurses graduate from nursing programs than retire from the nursing profession, an engineering solution is necessary. This paper reports on the design and development of a modular, organized, and efficient multifunctional nursing workstation. We applied systems engineering methodology to improve the functionality and organization of nursing medication carts. The wooden prototype was built to model the organization and efficiency of the multifunctional workstation design and reduces nursing time spent organizing and distributing patient medication.