At HIMSS18 we launched Jaco One EVO, our next-generation lightweight full-shift powered medical cart.
Jaco One EVO breaks acres of new ground in the medical cart market. EVO weighs up to 60 pounds less than competitors’ full-sized, full-shift powered medical carts. It’s precision balanced, to roll, steer and handle more easily and responsively than any cart we’ve ever built (and, we think, any cart anywhere).
And EVO’s refined Comfort Glide Lift Technology™ counteracts gravity and resistance so effectively, anyone can raise or lower the worksurface with just one hand. Comfort Glide is also the only lift mechanism in the industry backed with a 10-year warranty.
The New Jaco One EVO
Comfort Glide looks, and is, very different from the adjustable center posts you see on most medical carts. But
it’s actually based on lift technology included on Jaco carts sold over a dozen years ago – and its origins can be traced to humankind’s earliest machines.
An ancient idea, ahead of its time
In 2005, after several successful years as a pioneer in the medical cart marketplace, Jaco founder Fred Rossini saw an opportunity to make carts easier to adjust. Fred replaced the adjustable ‘center post’ worksurface support with a four-bar linkage – a machine that dates back to ancient Egypt and the construction of the pyramids.
Today, four-bar linkages minimize the forces required to lift or lower boom cranes, or to clamp objects in a Vise Grip. Fred knew that a piston-assisted four-bar linkage would bring the same mechanical advantage to his carts, making it much easier for nurses to raise and lower the worksurface. And with that, the Jaco ZXP cart was born:
Jaco deployed thousands of ZXP carts, in some of the largest hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide. Nurses loved the ease of adjustment, and IT directors loved the trouble-free performance of the lift mechanism.
Back to the future: The birth of Comfort Glide
At the same time, Jaco never stopped manufacturing center-post carts, and as hospitals adopted widespread use of medical carts for EHR in the late 2000s, our center-post Jaco UltraLite Series carts went on to become our best-sellers. But in 2015, two forces drove us to reconsider the four-bar lift.
The first was our own market research. The CNOs and IT managers we spoke with complained more and more about the electronic ‘powered lift’ carts that were becoming prevalent in hospitals. Powered lift allowed nurses to adjust cart height by pressing a button, but not without creating other problems for nurses and IT. It added at least 20 pounds of weight to the cart, essentially trading one occasional source of strain with another, more constant one. It was noisy and slow – so slow that nurses would choose to work at an uncomfortable height, rather than wait up to 12 seconds for the lift to do its job. And the complex powered lift machinery was more prone to fail, and much more costly to repair, than manual lift mechanisms; as a result powered lift carts often required expensive service contracts.
Second, we became aware that thousands of our Jaco ZXP carts were still in everyday use on hospital floors – many of them after 10 or more years of uninterrupted, trouble-free operation.
So our engineers went to work, and in 2016 we introduced our Jaco One cart system, with Comfort Glide Lift Technology, as a lighter, quieter, more affordable alternative to powered lift carts. Comfort Glide was based on the ZXP four-bar design, but significantly refined for even greater mechanical advantage, and much less wear and tear on moving parts. People who tried Comfort Glide on Jaco One immediately felt the difference in ease of adjustment. And owing to ZXP’s outstanding track record of reliability, we didn’t hesitate to back Comfort Glide with a 10-year warranty.
Evolving in giant steps
Jaco One marked a big step forward in ease of use, and a first step toward an even easier to use and even lighter full-shift powered cart: Jaco One EVO.
EVO starts with a smart design that carves mass and weight from every area of the cart, without sacrificing strength. The repositioned Comfort Glide lift creates a perfect side-to-side and front-to-back weight distribution, which – together with the weight reduction – dramatically reduces the effort required to roll, steer and maneuver the cart. Comfort Glide also locates the lift-assist piston directly beneath the front of the worksurface, for the easiest manual height adjustment of any EHR cart. And it further reduces wear and tear on moving parts.
As we say in our promotions, you really do owe it to your nurses and your IT staff to evaluate Jaco One EVO. In the meantime, rest assured that we here at Jaco will be working on the next big step forward in lightweight, long-lasting, easy-to-use medical carts and point-of-care technology.
Jaco deployed thousands of ZXP carts, in some of the largest hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide. Nurses loved the ease of adjustment, and IT directors loved the trouble-free performance of the lift mechanism.
