Medical Carts

What Is a PPH Cart & Why Are They Important?

A PPH cart is a specialized medical equipment solution designed to organize and secure the supplies needed during postpartum hemorrhage emergencies. These carts serve as centralized response systems that enable healthcare teams to access life-saving equipment within seconds during maternal emergencies.

According to 2025 CDC data, hemorrhage has become a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, accounting for 18.1% of maternal deaths, up from 12.1% pre-Covid. In addition, a study by the National Institutes of Health shows postpartum hemorrhage rates in the U.S. have increased dramatically from 2.7% to 4.3% between 2000 and 2019, affecting 2.3 million women.

These statistics underscore the critical need for immediate, organized emergency response capabilities. Every second counts during a postpartum hemorrhage crisis, making the difference between life and death.

 

Why Standard Supply Kits Fall Short

Many hospitals still rely on basic totes or supply caddies for hemorrhage response. However, these improvised solutions create critical gaps in emergency response:

Problems with Basic Supply Kits:

• Incomplete Inventory: Missing essential equipment when needed most
• Time Delays: Searching for specific items during critical moments. In 2021, TJC performed a study to measure the average time needed to collect a prespecified list of supplies and medications in response to PPH scenarios. With the use of a PPH medication cart, the average response time was reduced by 7 minutes.
• Disorganized Access: Supplies scattered across multiple containers
• Security Issues: No controlled access to medications, supplies, or equipment
• Compliance Gaps: Failure to meet Joint Commission maternal safety standards

A dedicated PPH cart addresses these challenges through systematic organization and immediate accessibility.

 

Essential PPH Cart Supplies

Based on an analysis of various hospital PPH cart inventories, a well-equipped cart typically contains 45-60 essential items organized for rapid emergency response. These supplies are strategically organized to ensure immediate access during critical situations.

Detailed PPH Cart Supply Configuration:

There are multitude of recommended supply configurations available online per accredited healthcare institutions dedicated to decreasing maternal mortality rates due to postpartum hemorrhage. See these resources below:

• Overview list by SaferBirth.org: Based on the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative’s OB Hemorrhage Toolkit V3.0 & American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District II’s Safe Motherhood Initiative
• Itemized list by each cart drawer by UF Health Jackson
• Grouped list by item category by Perinatal Services BC

PPH Cart Supply Overview:

Documentation & Protocols

• Emergency checklists and hemorrhage response procedures
• Blood transfusion forms and risk assessment tools

IV Access & Fluids

• Various IV catheters & start kits
• Saline, lactated ringers, and blood tubing

Medications & Blood Collection

• Syringes, needles, and medication administration supplies
• Blood collection tubes and vacutainer systems

Procedural Equipment

• Bakri balloon and tamponade devices
• Sterile gloves, gauze, and basic surgical supplies

Surgical Instruments

• Forceps, clamps, and suture materials
• Specialized OB instruments for emergency procedures

Benefits & Outcome Improvements of PPH Carts

Healthcare facilities implementing PPH carts report:

Clinical Outcomes:

• Reduced Response Time: 64% faster access to critical supplies
• Improved Team Coordination: Standardized supply location
• Enhanced Patient Safety: Consistent emergency response procedures
• Decreased Medical Errors: Organized, clearly labeled supply systems

Operational Benefits:

• Regulatory Compliance: Consistent Joint Commission approval
• Cost Efficiency: Reduced waste through better inventory management
• Staff Satisfaction: Improved confidence during emergency situations
• Risk Mitigation: Lower liability exposure through standardized protocols

 

PPH Carts at Convergint-Innovative Medical

When designing your postpartum hemorrhage cart with Convergint-IMS, you’ll be paired with our PPH cart specialist to guide you through educated decisions about your tailored solution. On top of our service, other benefits include:

• Joint Commission Compliance: Aligned with JCAHO maternal safety standards
• Customization Capability: Ability to configure drawers for specific supplies and workflows
• Security Features: Locking storage options
• Durability Standards: Hospital-grade construction for intensive use
• Infection Control: HDPE Body panels that withstand health grade cleaning agents

Conclusion

The difference between a basic supply kit and a properly configured PPH cart can be measured in minutes – and those minutes can mean the difference between life and death. With strategically organized supplies readily accessible, healthcare teams can respond to postpartum hemorrhage with confidence and speed.

Investing in comprehensive PPH cart supplies isn't just about equipment – it's about creating a systematic approach to maternal emergency response. As hemorrhage rates continue to climb, facilities with well-equipped PPH carts demonstrate their commitment to maternal safety through actionable preparation, not just policy.

Ready to optimize your PPH cart supplies? Contact our specialist below to discuss customized supply configurations that meet your facility's specific workflow requirements and ensure comprehensive emergency preparedness.

What is a Hemorrhage Cart, and Why is it Necessary?

A hemorrhage cart is a specialized medical equipment solution designed to organize, secure, and mobilize critical supplies needed during postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). These centralized response systems enable healthcare teams to access life-saving equipment within seconds during maternal emergencies. To meet JCAHO compliance standards, hemorrhage carts must meet several requirements that ensure efficiency and safety during obstetrical emergencies.

On average, 14 million women experience PPH globally each year, resulting in about 70,000 annual deaths. According to the Common Wealth Fund, “In 2023, at a time when maternal mortality was declining worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the United States was one of only seven countries to report a significant increase in the proportion of pregnancies that result in the death of the mother since 2000.”

These statistics highlight why the Joint Commission has prioritized maternal safety standards requiring immediate, organized emergency response capabilities. A properly equipped hemorrhage cart eliminates fatal delays by consolidating all essential supplies in one location, ensuring life-saving interventions can begin immediately when hemorrhage is identified.

 

Joint Commission Compliant Cart Standards

Joint Commission compliant postpartum hemorrhage carts must meet specific maternal safety requirements under the Provision of Care, Treatment, and Services chapter at PC.06.01.01 and PC.06.03.01. These regulations mandate:

Compliance Requirements:

• Standardized Supply Kit: Consistent, secured, dedicated hemorrhage supply kit with emergency hemorrhage supplies (as determined by the organization) to treat hemorrhage in one place.
• Documentation: Approved procedures for severe hemorrhage response.
• Secure Storage Systems: Locked and controlled access to medications and supplies.
• Emergency Access Features: Immediate availability to hemorrhage medications.

Avoiding Compliance Violations:

Non-compliant carts risk Joint Commission citations, leading to:

• Revocation or suspension of accreditation and certification
• Potential loss of Medicare & Medicaid reimbursements
• Damage to reputation, resulting in other loss of funding, loss of patients, and legal implications
• Potential hospital closure, as "Most hospitals would not be open after the denial of accreditation"

 

Selecting Your Hemorrhage Cart Solution

When evaluating PPH cart options, healthcare facilities should prioritize:

Essential Selection Criteria:

• Joint Commission Compliance: Aligned with JCAHO maternal safety standards
• Security Features: Appropriate medication storage and security
• Customization Capability: Ability to configure for specific workflows
• Durability Standards: Hospital-grade construction for intensive use
• Infection Control: Easy to clean & withstands health grade cleaning agents

 

Our Advanced Hemorrhage Cart Features

When designing your hemorrhage cart with Convergint-IMS, you’ll be paired with our PPH cart specialist to guide you through educated decisions about your tailored solution. On top of our service, other key features include:

JCAHO Compliant:

Avoid the headache of purchasing a medical cart that gets dinged for non-compliance. Our hemorrhage carts align with Joint Commission requirements under the Provision of Care, Treatment, and Services standards for maternal safety.

Intelligent Locking Systems:

Our postpartum hemorrhage carts utilize patented breakaway locking technology. During emergencies, healthcare providers can access all compartments through a single swift motion that breaks tamper-evident seals while maintaining complete security during normal operations. Other locking options include key lock, keyless locking, and auto relock.

Workflow-Optimized Design:

• Customizable Drawer Configuration: User-defined spaces with reconfigurable dividers for a tailored fit
• SecureCatch™ Technology: Automatic drawer securing when a drawer is within 1” of being closed
• Multiple Height Options: Standard (43"), Intermediate (39.5"), or Compact (36") heights to accommodate different workflows
• Precision Casters: Smooth and quick movement during emergency response
• Organization Systems: Wide selection of accessories for quick access to supplies

Infection Control and Maintenance:

Easy-to-wipe HDPE body panels enhance infection control protocols, critical for maintaining sterile environments during emergency procedures.

Conclusion

Meeting Joint Commission standards for hemorrhage carts is not optional – it's essential for patient safety, regulatory compliance, and institutional credibility. The consequences of non-compliance extend far beyond citations, potentially impacting accreditation status, reimbursement eligibility, and ultimately, your facility's ability to operate.

As maternal hemorrhage rates continue to rise and Joint Commission enforcement becomes increasingly stringent, healthcare facilities must prioritize compliant hemorrhage cart solutions. The investment in properly configured, Joint Commission compliant carts protects both patients and institutions, ensuring your facility meets the highest standards of maternal care while avoiding the severe penalties associated with regulatory violations.

Ready to ensure your hemorrhage cart meets Joint Commission standards? Contact our postpartum hemorrhage cart specialist to discuss solutions that guarantee regulatory approval and enhance your maternal emergency response capabilities.

It’s that time again - Spring Time. Time to open the windows and breathe in the fresh air!

I don’t know about other parts of the world, but in the Midwest airing out a house is so refreshing! Then comes time to clean out the cupboards, clear the drawers of clutter and junk, donate clothes from the closets and just plain minimize your belongings. There is a great feeling about opening a closet or dresser drawer when it has been re-organized.

A few years ago, my daughter bought a book by organizing consultant Marie Kondo. After reading the first chapter, she said, “It was pretty clear what the point of the whole book was going to be in the first chapter.” Marie has now become the latest craze on Netflix and is teaching many about the joy of tidying up.

Organizing my work space is just as important as organizing my home. It feels great coming to an area where every space has a purpose. I get excited about the idea or the gadgets that are available to help me get organized. However, getting there isn’t always easy or fast, it takes time.

The idea of organizing a cart drawer or cabinet can sometimes seem overwhelming. You can simplify it by taking a moment to separate supplies by category or urgency, then make the decision as to how you will go forward with keeping each item in its place.

At Innovative Medical Systems (now Convergint), we found the following three (of many) organizational options to be helpful:

• Drawer Divider Tray –these inserts, the size of the drawer, are set up with dividers and loaded with supplies. A spare, fully stocked tray in storage can be swapped out quickly for use and resupply/inventory management.
• Drawer Divider Inserts – When the need to restock isn’t nearly as urgent, yet clarity is important, dividers can be installed for the purpose of keeping the supplies separated so that they are quick and easy to identify.
• Flexible Dividers – the ability for the dividers to be modified as the needs of a department change or as requirements take effect is important.

Design your desired layout, be creative, be smart about necessities. Putting items you use often at the drawer front, and items used less often in the rear of the drawer.

If you need a new cart and require better drawer divider options to help with your workflow, contact Convergint for information on available options to make your job “spark joy!”

Medical Equipment & Healthcare Solutions

Connect with Convergint at (800) 968-3135 to learn more about our commitment to delivering exceptional results to our customers through unparalleled customer service.

Bedside sedation is not new to the healthcare industry. Nor are the medical carts they use. Recently, when the technology management team and anesthesia team of a leading academic medical center evaluated their bedside sedation carts for a pending EMR go-live, they quickly found their existing medical carts were due for more than an Overhaulin’.

Unlike the popular show that transforms cars well past their ‘glory days’, these carts were destined for the cart graveyard. They would require more than new bolt-on accessories, trim and fresh paint to integrate technology, and enhance workflow.

The anesthesia team traverses the entire campus, enough daily to satisfy anyone’s Fitbit, so adding additional equipment increased concern for ergonomic considerations. In addition, the laptop on their existing cart encumbered the anesthesia team’s work space and the existing cart did not support a monitor for EMR charting. Add in the congestion found at the patient’s bedside and you have a situation ripe for inefficient work arounds and potential errors.

To summarize, the anesthesia team was looking for one, self-supporting cart to serve the role of three carts (a medical cart, a point-of-care cart and an equipment roll stand) and have enough power to operate a computer and 24” monitor for a particular amount of time. The team was not successful in finding a fully-integrated cart and to design a custom solution meant an enormously lengthy process that could be cost-prohibitive.

That is, until they approached Innovative Medical Systems (now Convergint). Because of their experience in doing business with Convergint , they knew that if such a cart was possible, Convergint would be their best partner.

Because of Convergint's previous work on a host of endoscopy carts, Convergint knew Capsa had a model that included a power system and would be the platform to build upon. It would, however, require a partnership effort between Capsa, Convergint and the academic medical center to integrate all the necessary equipment; vital signs monitor/mount, telemetry device and a suction apparatus. And the cart still needed to satisfy clinical work flows, and not compromise stability or UL codes related to power.

• Convergint and Capsa adapted the vital signs monitor and several other accommodations.
• The suction apparatus (canister and regulator) was mounted on the cart with Capsa’s universal accessory mount, an aluminum adapter bracket fashioned by the medical center’s biomed team for their proprietary suction canister and regulator.
• The keyless locking, keyboard/mouse drawer, narcotics storage, telemetry mount and other accessories were standard, easy.

Before long, the team had a high level of confidence to advance everything to ‘proof of concept’. Review the final production cart and how we may help you with your tech-integrated cart applications.

Medical Equipment & Healthcare Solutions

Connect with Convergint at (800) 968-3135 to learn more about our commitment to delivering exceptional results to our customers through unparalleled customer service.

Several years ago, I was struck by how a single word could not only identify something—what it is—but could also describe where it is, how it is, etc. That moment came through a series of appointments and a surgeon who has a gift for describing a procedure using medical vernacular, with all its Latin terms, in a way that was very comprehensible to the lay person. Compared to his description, I would use many more words, even sentences to describe the same scenario. I gained a new perspective on how concise medical language really is.

Since then, while dealing with medical carts for various hospital departments I have noticed that the labels often used to identify their medical carts range from the very general type (such as Treatment, Procedure, Crash, etc.) to the more specific role (such as Nerve Block, Suture, or Cast, etc.). Some carts share aspects that are more or less universal. For instance, it’s almost universally true that crash carts are red or blue, anesthesia carts green and isolation carts are yellow.

Developing Solutions

However, very few are universal and specific in their color, configuration, contents and locking—like I referenced in the manner of my opening analogy. To resolve that identity crisis, Convergint has developed solutions that solve that identity crisis by working hand in hand with the clinicians on these medical carts:

For instance, a hemorrhage cart's name implies it use without a second thought. How about a cast cart? Or what about developing a cart that assists in a current workflow like a pre-anesthesia cart?

When seconds count to save a life, anesthesia and crash carts benefit from a universal nature. When it comes to treatment carts there are many variations throughout a healthcare ecosystem; including clinics, professional offices, surgical centers, acute care hospitals, extended care facilities and even correctional facilities.

Because of this general vernacular, treatment cart, the configurations may actually hinder work flow efficiencies because they are not specific to the needs of the cart. These inefficiencies can ultimately lead to work arounds which can translate into greater cost of care delivery or, at an extreme, greater exposure to liability.

Convergint strives diligently to work with customers by fully understanding the application and work flow of their medical carts. We guide customers to the most supportive configuration for their workflow needs. For example, we want to understand:

• Cart size (height) – is the cart parked under a counter or does it need to be at an ergonomic height?
• Drawers –number and sizes of drawers and their division of space.
• Locking – what type of access, level of security, local or remote supervision.
• Integration – the ever-increasing integration of patient monitoring, telemetry, charting and consolidating carts by eliminating roll stands, ring stands and/or bakers carts.

By answering these questions, we will help build the right cart for the right use that supports your workflow. We would love to hear from you.

Medical Equipment & Healthcare Solutions

Connect with Convergint at (800) 968-3135 to learn more about our commitment to delivering exceptional results to our customers through unparalleled customer service.