Sunday, March 8, 2009

What's wrong with this picture? - XIII



Last week, I noticed someone had nailed a green doodad onto the door of each operating room.




Any guesses what it's for?




I suppose this is a trick question "What's wrong with this picture?" because this is really an example of great design. WWWTP is usually about bad design, but I'm going to broaden things a bit to allow for this doodad.

It's a room marker in case we have to evacuate the OR because of a fire or other disaster. The fire marshall checks each room to make sure it's empty, then closes the door and flips the doodad up so it rests on the door frame in an upright position:



If anyone opens the door again, the doodad swings back down to its original position, indicating that the room may have been reentered.

Simple. Brilliant. Sweet.

4 comments:

Duane Davis said...

That is brilliant.

"A designer knows perfection not when when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Margaret said...

Would it be some sort of automatic door opening device that you would wave your hand in front of and never have to touch the surface of the door reducing contact with bacteria and viruses? But it's on the left and it's not intuitive, what ever it is.

Kishore Visvanathan said...

Oops! I guess the "Read more..." link is a little too faint to see. Margaret, if you want to know what it's for, click on "Read more..." to see the rest of the post.

hemroids treatment said...

I think that is great ideal to put something like that on an OR door. That way if something does happen then the surgeons and surgery nurse will know about it and can do what is best for them and the patient that it is under anesthesia.