The Brooklyn design studio SITU has been working on some creative ways to expedite safe COVID-19 testing in NYC.
Like the popular “drive-thru” testing sites in update New York and other rural areas (and some here in the city!), the SITU team has designed an urban “walk thru” testing booth model that they’ve been working with frontline healthcare workers to perfect. Their hope is to help increase testing capacity in cities both safely and securely.
Their testing “booths” involve a plastic screen that the medical practitioner will stand inside of, with two arm holes with attached gloves that they can stick their hands through, in order to collect samples from patients, as seen below:
Each booth is quite adaptable, for they explain, “As there are various ways samples are collected and examinations are performed, we designed several configurations that can be customized for each medical team in order to best facilitate their workflow. With a range of openings and interactive features, the booth allows full-use of various equipment for evaluation (e.g., stethoscope, pulse-oximeter, swabs, etc.).”
They have also added walls to the patient’s side of the booth, for privacy and to prevent contamination:
Some booths are more durable and made for heavy-use at long-term testing facilities, while others are more portable for more temporary spaces or smaller teams. They can work for both indoor spaces or outdoor tents.
The team hopes to use the booths in satellite testing sites that can be popped up anywhere from parks and plazas to ball fields and parking lots, and also near hospitals to help prevent them from getting overcrowded with testing facilities. They could also serve as a possibility for schools as they start to reopen in the fall. You can read even more about their work on their website here.
In other news: The MTA Is Adding PPE Vending Machines To New York’s Subway Stations
featured image source: Situ.nyc