Black & Veatch Rapid Modular Health System Selected as Edison Award Finalist for Efforts to Fight COVID-19
Quickly deployable, highly scalable units developed to provide safe, comfortable sites for coronavirus screening, testing and vaccinations
OVERLAND PARK, Kansas, February 11, 2021 /3BL Media/ – As an innovator in the global fight against the coronavirus, Black & Veatch proudly announces that its Rapid Modular Health System (RaMHS) – a quickly deployable, scalable and comfortable enclosure designed for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations – has been named a finalist for the Edison Award for pandemic-related solutions.
Black & Veatch’s advancement in the “COVID-19 Innovations: Mobilizing for Emergency Response” award comes as rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations accelerates across the United States, with RaMHS units answering the call as a versatile option to deliver inoculations.
Initially conceived as sites for controlled coronavirus testing and other diagnostic purposes outside of buildings like hospital emergency rooms and urgent care clinics where contamination risk was greatest, RaMHS units utilize intermodal containers transformed into windowed modules in various sizes and configurations. Weather-resistant, climate-controlled and lockable, the units come ready for electrical hookups and can be outfitted with the latest in COVID response technology from a variety of partners. Additional development has resulted in the deployment of Black & Veatch’s “RaMHS Mobile Clinics,” which provide all the features of the modular solutions with the added mobility of a vehicle.
Easily installed, uniquely adaptable and operational within days, RaMHS solutions can be quickly daisy-chained to meet community and regional demands. In tandem with use of personal protective equipment (PPE), this design can reduce exposure risks. RaMHS also is a hub where PPE can be disinfected and data can be harvested and analyzed to record and measure where patients have been.
Among the highest accolades a product can receive in the name of innovation success, the Edison Awards – to be announced in April – recognize and honor some of the world’s most-innovative new products, services and business leaders, propelling the drive for creativity and ingenuity. The yearly honors personify the persistence and excellence of 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.
“We proudly view our finalist status for this Edison Award as a reflection that with RaMHS, we’re at the forefront of technical and physical innovations at a time when the world most needs it,” said Dave Johnson, the RaMHS solutions team leader at Black & Veatch. “For more than a century as a global infrastructure leader, Black & Veatch has vast experience in pathogen-tracking methods and the construction of biological safety-related facilities. Our development of RaMHS is an extension of that push for solutions that matter.”
“In a year when everyone was forced to change their daily routines, it’s amazing how many companies responded by innovating new solutions that make consumers’ lives safer, healthier and more productive,” Edison Universe Executive Director Frank Bonafilia said.
RaMHS solutions give schools, health-care sites, office parks, government locations, commercial and industrial businesses, and retail locations the peace of mind of having a reliable, affordable coronavirus testing place within days.
Editor’s 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.
- In 2018, Black & Veatch – partnering with Synexis Biodefense Systems – won a bronze Edison Award prize for “collective disruptions” for its work on using data analytics to advance Synexis’ microbe-fighting devices in workplaces and other occupied spaces.
- In 2017, Black & Veatch was honored with a silver Edison Awards prize in the transportation and logistics category for its support in developing hydrogen fueling-station deployments in California that further green transportation.
- In 2016, the company took the top Edison Award in the smart grids and servers space for its microgrid that helps power its headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas.
- 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 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 in over 100 countries by addressing the resilience and reliability of our world's most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2019 were US$3.7 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.
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