H Plus Yangji Hospital introduced its walk-through Covid-19 test system, which has received a lot of attention both here and abroad, during the K-Hospital Fair 2020.
The K-Hospital fair, originally scheduled from Aug. 31-Sept. 2, kicked off a three-day event on Wednesday after postponing the event twice due to Covid-19. One of the exhibitions highlighted by the organizers was the "K-Quarantine Special Exhibition."
The exhibition, participated in by 33 companies, aimed to share hospitals' experience of handling Covid-19 and new solutions to brace for the second outbreak of Covid-19. It also introduced technologies, medical devices, and locally developed equipment that helped the nation put Covid-19 under control.
H Plus Yangji Hospital was the only medical institution to participate in the exhibition with the walkthrough Covid-19 test system. The hospital's platform has recently attracted foreign news outlets' interests, including the Washington Post and the Harvard Business Review. The hospital unveiled its upgraded walkthrough booth during the event, featuring an automated disinfection function for the first time.
The hospital's walkthrough system centers on a negative pressure-type booth, where patients are located inside the booth, and the medical staff is located outside of the booth.
The system allows a one-stop process such as interview, treatment, and sample collection while separating the patients and medical staff throughout the process. The hospital has been operating the walk-thru system since March 10 and has tested more than 17,000 corona tests with no cross-infections.
The hospital recently installed an automated disinfection system in the booth to reduce the risk of cross-infection between medical workers and patients.
Unlike the existing method, in which medical workers had to enter the booth to perform disinfection measures, the new system allows medical staff to use a touch screen attached to the booth, which deploys rollers soaked in disinfectant to clean the entire booth walls automatically.
"The advantage of a walkthrough platform is that it maximizes safety and efficiency with its large capacity and rapid inspection," the hospital said. "Also, we have various other types of booths, including an open and bed type walk-through booth, to treat patients in any given situation."
Along with the booths, the hospital also operates an x-ray inspection booth that allows real-time inspection and reading on-site. Recognizing the hospital's walkthrough system's high efficacy, Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. recently adopted the method at their hospital.
"The hospital would like to actively share the walkthrough system and operational know-how with our colleagues and provide help to local hospitals that experience difficulty operating a screening clinic," H Plus Yangji Hospital Director Kim Sang-il said. "We will continue to upgrade the system so that it can be used in various ways to diagnose new respiratory infections, including tuberculosis and influenza."
The exhibition also covered a variety of medical supplies. They included face masks, hand sanitizers, face shields, protective clothing, mobile negative pressure equipment, digital X-rays, body temperature monitoring thermal imaging cameras, air purification and sterilizers, hospital quarantine systems, quarantine and disinfection robots, and a system to manage Covid-19-affected hospital employees.
Besides the K-Quarantine Special Exhibition, the fair will also hold various other displays.
These exhibitions include the "Digital Healthcare Special Exhibition," which will introduce how the integration of ICT technologies and medicine can create new ways to prevent and treat diseases, and “Healthcare IT Innovation Exhibition," which will showcase the medical industry's latest trends, such as artificial intelligence, big data, clouds, and the Internet of things.