West was the lead researcher (PI, Myerson) on a multidisciplinary project with partners from Imperial College London to improve patient safety in the hospital bed space. West conducted and coordinated research between RCA designers (West and Davey) and clinicians, psychologists, patient safety experts and process management academics in Imperial College London. West led on drawing evidence from how analogous industries manage risky processes such as mining, chemical, oil exploration, shipping and construction, to find new ways of reducing systemic error on surgical hospital wards.

This research developed a number of design interventions in the hospital bed space. West developed the Vital Signs Trolley as a direct result of the analogous industries study and collaboration with clinical partners. He found that the main problem with the trolley, which measures vital signs such as blood pressure and temperature, is that data is not captured accurately, the unit is hard to clean and its trailing wires spread infection. West’s new trolley has an easy-clean design, an improved cable management system and a digital transcription system to avoid errors. The design was refined for manufacture in collaboration with an industrial partner, Humanscale.
The thinking behind the Vital Signs Trolley built on West’s previous work on the award winning Resus-Station (2006-2008), a resuscitation trolley that is now in clinical trials.

West presented the DOME interventions, including the Vital Signs Trolley, at the ‘World Congress on Design and Health’ (USA, 2011) and published ‘Taking ergonomics to the bedside – A multi-disciplinary approach to designing safer healthcare’ in Applied Ergonomics, October 2013 (West REF Output 1).