Medical patients often require intravenous (“IV”) medication and hydration delivery systems. These IV systems generally utilize a vertical support pole located above the patient so that their contents may easily be administered with gravity flow. Depending on the patient's needs, multiple medications may be administered simultaneously through use of a plurality of fluid dispensers. In traditional IV systems, IV liquid delivery tubing can easily become tangled or wrapped around the support pole, particularly when multiple IV fluid dispensers are hung from the same support pole. Moreover, when multiple IV fluid dispensers are in use, the delivery tubing itself may become tangled together. These tangles can cause a host of problems, including patient discomfort caused by an IV line inadvertently being removed from the patient, requiring reinsertion. Where an IV line is not removed, the patient can experience discomfort when the medical attendant is untangling the tubing. Additionally, time spent untangling lines is an inefficient use of the medical attendant's time and skills.
Another issue with traditional IV systems is a lack of visibility in low light conditions, such as during the night, which can make changing IV bags difficult. Since patient care in hospital is necessarily carried out on a 24-hour-a-day basis, medical care attendants often change IV fluid dispensers during the night. Since patients may need to remain undisturbed by the attendant's actions, the option of simply turning on the room lighting to see the IV system may be unavailable or inappropriate. Where it is possible to turn on the light, such an action risks waking a sleeping patient, which could have a detrimental impact on the patient. Moreover, the tangling issue in a low light setting is exacerbated, increasing the risk and impact of the problems disclosed above.
Traditional IV systems therefore have at least the disadvantages of being: 1) difficult to manage when a plurality of fluid dispensers is in use at once; 2) difficult to maintain in low lighting situations; and 3) prone to causing patient discomfort when multiple lines become tangled.
The present invention overcomes these limitations and disadvantages, and the impact of these problems with an IV pole featuring a rotating top portion combined with a light source emitted from the pole itself.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds