Black & Veatch’s `Rapid Modular Health System’ Wins Top Edison Award for Efforts to Fight COVID-19
Rapidly deployable, scalable mobile units offer safe, comfortable sites for coronavirus screening, testing and vaccinations
Black & Veatch proudly announces that its Rapid Modular Health System (RaMHS) solution has won the coveted top prize for pandemic-related solutions at the 2021 Edison Awards. The company received a gold award in the “COVID-19 Innovations: Mobilizing for Emergency Response” category for its RaMHS solution, a mobile screening, testing and vaccination facility capable of mitigating access point risk for healthcare, office, education and other industries dealing with the pandemic.
Initially conceived as sites for controlled coronavirus testing outside of buildings like hospital emergency rooms and urgent care clinics where contamination risk was greatest, RaMHS units are intermodal containers transformed into comfortable, controlled environments in various sizes and configurations. Weather-resistant, climate-controlled and secure, the units come ready for electrical hookups and can be outfitted with the latest in COVID response technology.
Underscoring their versatility, the modules lately have served as “RaMHS Mobile Clinics” for urban core, rural and underserved regions and populations. The RaMHS units are flexible in mobility, small enough to navigate through tight urban spaces while also able to support rural settings.
“This Edison Award is an affirmation that innovative thinking can produce meaningful solutions when the world needs it most,” said Dave Johnson, the RaMHS solutions team leader at Black & Veatch. “Our team harnessed Black & Veatch’s vast experience in pathogen-tracking methods and the construction of biological safety-related facilities with our practical infrastructure deployment skills to deliver an affordable solution to mitigate risk and expand testing.”
Easily installed, uniquely adaptable and operational within days, RaMHS solutions can be quickly configured to meet community and regional demands. In tandem with use of personal protective equipment (PPE), this design can reduce exposure risks. RaMHS can also serve as a hub where PPE can be disinfected, and data can be harvested and analyzed to record and measure patient movement.
Among the highest accolades a product can receive in the name of innovation, the Edison Awards recognize and honor some of the world’s most cutting-edge products and services as well as business leaders driving creativity and ingenuity. The annual honors personify the awards’ namesake, prolific innovator Thomas Edison. Finalists for the honors are deemed “best of the best” by the world’s top senior business leaders, academics and innovators.
The Edison Award prize marks the latest by Black & Veatch in the innovation contest. In 2016, the company took gold in the smart grids and servers space for its microgrid that helps power its Overland Park, Kansas, headquarters. In 2018, Black & Veatch and partner Synexis Biodefense Systems won bronze for “collective disruptions” for using data analytics to advance Synexis’ microbe-fighting devices in workplaces and other occupied spaces. And in 2017, Black & Veatch grabbed silver in the transportation and logistics category for supporting development of hydrogen fueling-station deployments in California to further green transportation.
Editors Notes:
For more details about RaMHS, click here, or contact Dave Johnson at JohnsonD2@BV.com, Mark Shreve at ShreveMA@BV.com or RaMHS@BV.com.
The RaMHS solutions amplify Black & Veatch’s innovation in addressing biologically and medically dangerous threats. Through the United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Biological Threat Reduction Program, for example, the company already has been providing infectious disease surveillance and biological sample management to more than 20 countries around the globe.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is an employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2020 exceeded US$3.0 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.
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