Patent Application
20230076904
This application generally relates to door opening and closing mechanisms used in clinical and research laboratories, hospitals, doctor's offices, biotechnology facilities, and other areas where governmental and/or industry regulations require that personnel wear gloves and that door opening and closing mechanisms not come in contact with the gloves worn by personnel working in said area. Other environments where the present invention may be beneficially implemented include manufacturing or those related to food preparation or meal service, such as restaurants, commercial kitchens, industrial food processing facilities, and the like.
In workplaces where personnel are likely to come into contact with hazardous substances, personal protective equipment, or PPE, is required to protect employees from serious workplace injuries or illnesses resulting from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards.
PPE includes a variety of devices and garments such as face shields, safety glasses, hard hats, safety shoes, goggles, coveralls, gloves, vests, earplugs, and respirators.
In particular with regard to gloves, Occupational Safety and Health Standards (“OSHA”) § 1910.138(a) states the general requirement that employers shall select and require employees to use appropriate hand protection when employees' hands are exposed to hazards such as those from skin absorption of harmful substances; severe cuts or lacerations; severe abrasions; punctures; chemical burns; thermal burns; and harmful temperature extremes.
The present invention is directed to those environments where gloves are a required form of PPE, and to solving the problems related to glove use.
Workplaces where gloves are used to protect personnel from hazardous chemicals and infectious materials commonly have protocols in place to prevent contamination of the various surfaces, including door handles, that are present in those environments. Preventing contamination is particularly important in workplaces where gloved and ungloved employees are sharing the same work area, such as research laboratories and biotechnologies facilities, where researchers are often working alongside office personnel or other staff that are not wearing gloves.
In these environments, personnel wearing gloves must often refrain from touching door handles, elevator buttons, telephones, lavatory faucets, or other common surfaces, and are required to remove gloves before touching personal items, such as phones, computers, pens and their skin. Disposable gloves must be discarded once removed, and cannot be saved for future use because, once used, gloves are considered contaminated. Gloves must also be removed upon exiting the laboratory or entering into a common area to prevent cross-contamination of commonly used surfaces. To the extent that the facility in question uses non-disposable or reusable gloves, those gloves must be washed and dried, as needed, and then inspected for tears and holes prior to reuse.
In the types of hazardous environments described above, conventional door handles are problematic for gloved personnel. Every time a gloved employee needs to open or close a door, they are required to remove at least one glove to make contact with the door handle. The results in a waste of both time, because the employee may be required to wash the hand from which the glove was removed before contacting the door handle, and resources in the form of single-use gloves that must be disposed of after one use.
Many of the existing facilities where gloves are required (e.g., clinical or research laboratories, clean rooms, and biotechnology environments) were built using conventional door handles, such as a knob style handle comprising a round circular, semicircular, or oval knob which the user turns to release the catch and open the door or a lever style handle comprising a short level arm which the user lifts or depresses to release the catch and open the door. Regardless of type, these conventional door handles usually only have one means of opening or closing the door, such that every person wishing to open the door is required to contact the same main opening mechanism, e.g., the knob, lever, or handle.
Therefore, a need exists for an apparatus that allows laboratory personnel to move within the laboratory, and from laboratory to laboratory, potentially through common areas or non-laboratory areas, without having to remove their gloves and engage in any other required safety measures collateral to glove removal, such as washing hands.
Further, there exists a need to provide the apparatus described above without the costs, in terms both parts and labor, associated with removing and replacing existing door opening mechanisms, which in large facilities could represent hundreds or thousands of door handles and result in substantial, and perhaps cost prohibitive, expenses.
To overcome the problems described above, and to overcome other limitations that will become apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, the present invention discloses a novel accessory handle.
The disclosed accessory handle may be attached to an existing door handle to provide a second handle for opening and closing the door. The accessory handle disclosed herein may be particularly useful for use in laboratories, clean rooms, and other environments in which contamination needs to be controlled and where individuals may be required to wear gloves. As described above, conventional door opening mechanisms require personnel to remove gloves each time they need to open a door, or to ask for someone else to open the door for them. The disclosed accessory handle allows individuals wearing PPE to operate doors without needing to take off gloves or seek assistance from another person.
An object of some embodiments of the present invention is to provide a door opening solution that does not require the expensive removal and replacement of existing door handles. A further object of some embodiments is to provide a solution where both gloved and ungloved personnel have the ability to use the same door opening mechanism. A further object of some embodiments is to provide a door opening solution that can fit over and accommodate the existing mechanical features of various types of door handles, including without limitation knob style handles as well as lever style handles. A further object of some embodiments is to provide an accessory door handle in which the existing door handle can be easily removed to install the accessory door handle. A further object of some embodiments is to provide a universal modular door accessory that can be used with existing door handles present on either side of the door, and for use by both right-handed and left-handed persons.
The various embodiments of the invention are described in more detail with reference to the advantageous embodiments presented as examples and to the accompanying drawings, in which:
In the following description of the preferred embodiment, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration a specific embodiment in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
As seen in
The clamp defines a slot 15 through which the door handle 1001 fits. As shown in
The accessory handle 10 as shown in
The shape of the raised portion 101 on clamp portion 12 and the corresponding shape of the recessed portion 91 on the underside of the handle portion 11 allows for alternate placements of the handle portion 11 according to the door swing and existing door handle placement. The shape combined with the use of a single attachment screw 72 allows for rotating the placement of the handle portion 11 to allow for both left- and right-hand doors, creating a universal door handle accessory able to be installed on almost any existing door and handle.
The accessory handle may be made from aluminum or another material that is easy to clean and sterilize. An eye-catching finish may be applied to the handle to make it more likely to be noticed by people. For instance, if made of aluminum, the handle may be anodized to a red color. Other material and other colors may be used as appropriate based on the specifics of the environment. With reference to
The foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention have been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. It is intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claims appended hereto.
