HCWs invent a way to prevent injuries
Devices offer new approach to ergo hazards
They say necessity is the mother of invention. But for health care providers, the inspiration for new safe patient handling devices has come from pain and discomfort and the desire to protect their colleagues from injury.
Several new products have been created by former health care providers, who say they understand the workplace hazards in a way that ergonomics engineers cannot.
In 2003, Elizabeth White, RN, was an ICU nurse in San Bernadino, CA, caring for a 400-pound patient with an abdominal wound and spinal precautions when she began to have chronic back pain. She was diagnosed with severe degenerative disease that would not respond to surgery.
A few months after her diagnosis, White's father suffered a stroke and she rushed to visit him in the emergency department in Utah. "I looked at the nurses moving my dad and I knew they were hurting themselves the same way I hurt myself. I knew there had to be a better way," she says.
White found that she had felt the greatest strain on her back when she was repositioning patients which needed to occur several times per shift. Even lift equipment had its limitations; the patient needed to be rolled onto a sling.
"Unless you got rid of the sling or at least made it so you could lift the person onto the sling, you could never get to 'no lift,'" she says.
White's concept is simple but effective: Use the sheet to move the patient. She devised a lift, called ErgoNurse ($3,995, www.ergonurse.com). It attaches to the headboard of a hospital bed, with metal arms that fold back when not in use. Metal clamps hold onto the sides of the sheet. In tests, the ErgoNurse moved 1,060 lbs. of cement using a $3 Wal-Mart sheet, White says.
"We've been using sheets to move patients for hundreds of years. When you spread the force along the entire bar, sheets are really strong," she says.
The ErgoNurse can be used to place a patient on a sling for transfer, as well as repositioning or turning the patient in bed. By making it easier for the caregivers to reposition, the patient will get better care while the health care workers avoid injury, White says.
Harris Methodist Fort Worth (TX) Hospital was a pilot site for ErgoNurse and it is now introducing the device to the health system, Texas Health Resources. "We're trying to get it implemented on more units and really encouraging its use," reports Mary Fulton, RN, BSN, CIC, manager of infection prevention and employee health.
Wheelchair docks into Chair-A-Table
In his 30 years as a dermatologist, Willis E. Martin, MD, of Raleigh, NC, occasionally would crouch on the floor to examine a wheelchair-bound patient's foot rather than try to hoist the patient onto an exam table. When he absolutely had to move a patient with limited mobility onto the table, he always was concerned about the potential for injury to his staff.
"I would treat them in the chair if I could. I knew we were subjecting that patient to potential danger and subjecting the staff to potential danger," he says.
Still, treating patients as they sat in a wheelchair had its difficulties, too. "I got tired of getting on my knees with my head on the floor, looking up at the foot of a diabetic," Martin says.
Martin's invention: A Chair-A-Table. Patients are transferred from their cars into a special wheelchair when they arrive at the clinic or hospital, or from their hospital bed to the chair. The wheelchair docks into the exam table, the seat becomes part of the padding of the table and the arm rests are removed. The table comes with a variety of accessories, including stirrups for a gynecologic exam. The exam table can be raised or lowered to the desired height and can sustain weights up to 1,000 lbs. ($20,000, www.martininnovations.com).
The Martin Chair-A-Table motto is "Preventing disabilities while caring for the disabled." Onslow Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, NC, is using the Chair-A-Table in its ED and with post-hysterectomy patients.
"It is absolutely fabulous," says Tracy Sobiesienski, RN, nurse manager for labor & delivery and postpartum. "Getting someone from their bed to a stretcher is usually fairly easy, but getting them from a wheelchair to the exam table is usually difficult. You're always worried about the patient losing their footing or falling.
"The chair just adapts into the table," she says. "It's better for patient safety. It reduces the nurses' risk of back injury. It's very easy to use."
Patients appreciate the comfort of the Chair-A-Table, says Martin. "Every time you eliminate a transfer, you eliminate a potential for [a patient] falling and a potential for [employee] back injury," says Martin, who is continuing to conduct research and development on other devices that would prevent patient handling injuries.
Easy lift with LiftWalker
Sometimes, the invention involves a relatively simple redesign. Take, for example, the LiftWalker, which is a metal walker with a U-bar that functions as a level to help the patient rise from a seated position.
Craig Weaver, founder of We Care LLC of Crossville, TN, (http://wecarellc.com) used PVC pipes to make his first prototype of the LiftWalker, and the design will be incorporated into a standard walker frame. The patient or nursing home resident holds on to a grab bar to lift him or herself, while the caregiver pulls back.
"Most of the time, the person really just needs to be able to pull themselves up. This gives them a perfect ergonomic position," says Weaver, whose wife is a nurse.
Weaver's product still is in development, but he envisions that it will only be nominally more expensive than existing walkers. Yet it could benefit not only nurses and aides, but also at-home caregivers, he says.
"It only takes 25 lbs. of exertion from the caregiver to leverage 200 pounds of weight. That initial boost is all that's needed," Weaver says.
They say necessity is the mother of invention. But for health care providers, the inspiration for new safe patient handling devices has come from pain and discomfort and the desire to protect their colleagues from injury.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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