Bangkok Hospital Chiang Mai clinches two wins at Healthcare Asia Awards

Its innovations ensure that work processes are more efficient and that patients are satisfied.

Tertiary care hospital Bangkok Hospital Chiang Mai (BCM) brought home major awards at the recently held Healthcare Asia Awards for the impact of its measurement device BCM SMART Air Quality Control and its BCM Wrist Support device.

BCM SMART Air Quality Control device continuously monitors and allows for quick response to improve air quality, temperature and humidity standards, which in turn further improves the stability and sterility of medicine and medical supplies.

The hospital’s IT department has been involved in designing this programme by connecting sensor devices to the cloud server and by providing real-time results on the device’s dashboard and LCD monitor. The system can report data every three minutes and can detect abnormalities about 43 times per day. 

Due to the reduced work process and manpower on monitoring, labour expenditures and hospital full-time equivalents have also been reduced. BCM also mentioned that the lean work process in the project helps lower carbon footprint to 0.66 tons per year.

“In the future, we will develop the air quality data server and notify errors in the system, connect to the hospital ventilation system to adjust the temperature and humidity automatically,” the company said about its future plans for the device.

BCM SMART Air Quality Control took the Facilities Improvement Initiative of the Year - Thailand category win in the prestigious awards programme.

Meanwhile, the BCM Wrist Support was created in 2019 to immobilise the procedure wrist site. This comes amidst complications of hematoma being recorded after patients undergo wrist cardiac catheterization procedure. The wrist support device has a wrist pad made of acrylic and covered with plastic and plastic straps. 

The first prototype for this device was made in 2019, where users had a very high user satisfaction rate of 81%. The main feedback for this is that the pad was too hard, the plastic straps irritated, and it made it uncomfortable and too small when it was used on patients with large wrists.

This led BCM to make another prototype by covering the pad with a sponge covered in velvet fabric. A cloth was used to construct the straps instead of plastic. This led to a 97% satisfaction rate amongst patients.

For the third and last prototype, a soft, breathable, and waterproof thermoplastic pad is used. The user can adjust the plastic loop on the stretchy fabric strap. This caused all patients to express satisfaction with the device.

Results from the development of the wrist support prototypes showed that using the device with the standard nursing practices reduces complications of hematoma.

“The team has taken this information to study in further research to compare the results to be more reliable. We have registered this device for a patent, allowing it to be widely used in other hospitals,” the company said.

BCM won the Patient Safety Initiative of the Year - Thailand in the awards programme for the achievements made by its Wrist Support device.

Healthcare Asia Awards recognises exceptional healthcare providers that have redefined the standards of healthcare through their unwavering dedication to innovation, setting of new industry benchmarks, and substantial contributions to their communities.

The Healthcare Asia Awards is presented by Healthcare Asia Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2025 awards programme and be acclaimed for your organisation's remarkable initiatives and contributions to the healthcare industry, please contact Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected].