New Patient lift creates room for recovery

May 14, 2012 - PRLog -- An old saying goes “to stay healthy avoid hospitals.” That may not be so wrong after all, at least not for nurses, according to research. As much as 25% of nurses in Norway must retire early after work injuries or back problems with lifting and patient handling as main causes, a heavy price for society and not least the nurses themselves.

That will soon be history as new patient handling solutions “ change the way patient rooms are designed,” says designer Skjalg Aabakken from Integra Care Products, a Norwegian patient handling company. “Finally it is possible to create positive patient rooms that are great for patients as well as nurses.”

Forgot That Patients Are Persons
It started with an eye-opener back in 2005 when Aabakken had designed a ceiling lift. “It was a shock to see how brutal this system looked in a persons bedroom ceiling. We had solved the lifting need, but forgotten that a real person was living there. How could he sleep with a spiderlike thing lurking in the corner?” Aabakken felt he must redo the job “A radical new approach. I wanted a solution that would add to the interior, not destroy it.”

Easier Said Than Done
Aabakken assembled a small design-team. But how could the lifter with its motor, slings and handling bars be easily available for nurses and also contribute to a healing interior? "We had planned for eight entire weeks of concepts generation, but ended up doodling and making mock-ups for more than a year. The concepts were super-efficient but intruding or discrete but slow." Was it not possible after all?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsC8NvAstA8



I think we’ve got something
One rainy October evening Aabakken and a fellow entrepreneur, Svein Idso, discussed the problems over a beer. “The ideal solution must fit in the room and be efficient; just like my arm is there when I need it.” Idso extracted his arm towards the beer, took a sip “and goes back again when I’m done” letting his arm drop.

The solution appeared right in front of them. “Of course. It must extract like an arm and fold neatly back in place, and then it will match the interior!" After 12 months the solution was born out of a simple hand-gesture and it took less than 10 minutes to scribble it down on a napkin. "I think we've got something here,” Aabakken said.

Healing Environments
Now six years later Integralift is world-patented, in production and sold around the globe. The Integra-team works closely with architects and hospital furnishing suppliers to create next generation patient rooms. Research shows that healing design in hospitals speeds up the recovery-process, but architects was missing a patient lift that fits into healing design patient rooms.

Not Only Appearance
But if the nurses keeps getting injured there is still a problem. According to Aabakken their studies showed serious design-flaws with the portable lifters in use today. Often as an urgent transfer-need arises the lifter is in use already, borrowed to another hospital station or “out of battery.” The outcome is stress, time-waste and injuries as alternative solutions are likely to be used. Aabakken continues. “Nurses appreciate Integralift's availability. They can enter the room and know that there is always a complete patient lift readily available next to the bed. They do not need to spend time looking for slings or changing batteries. Integralift has proved 40% more time-efficient than existing solutions."

The future
Focus on patient emotions will increase in the next phase of healthcare development. Happier patients recover faster and cost less. Healthier nurse staff shortens the hospital queue. Integralift sets the direction for future patient handling solutions.

www.integralift.net