subject: Transport Chair | How Patient Transportation Makes A Lasting Impression Of A Hospital Visit [print this page] The lights flash, things beep and sing out in alarm, green-clad men and women race with purposeful strides from place to place with confidence and skill and a bleeding, sick or injured body is rendered whole and healthy through the ministrations of caring hospital personnel. They get all the glory, while the equally critical field of patient transportation is left, unsung, on the sidelines, to fend for itself.
Patient Transport Needs
This is not to say that heart surgeons and MRI technicians and general practitioners are not all critical to the health and well-being of a patient in a hospital or other care facility. Without patient transportation, none of the vital and necessary treatments would get done. At the very least, the X-Rays would have to be brought to the patient, rather than the other way around.
Whether because patient transportation is a less-glamorous field, or simply due to the vagaries of fate, the equipment supporting the needed work tends to be chosen for the lowest cost, with the anticipation of frequent replacement due to theft and wear. These short-term savings lead to higher costs in the longer term.
Not just in terms of the physical wheelchairs, but in wear and tear on hospital personnel, as well as the risk of injury while moving patients or due to them slipping off unattended.
A Chair that Will Maximize Safety without Raising Costs
The good news for the unsung heroes of patient transportation as well as those in charge of facility finances is the appearance on the scene of a transport suitable to their needs. While its short-term cost is slightly more than that of baseline wheelchair, like any vehicle designed for heroic deeds, it will more than pay for itself.
This alternative transport chair is cost efficient firstly in that it includes numerous features that combine to prevent both theft and patient injury. Its occupant cannot propel this chair. There is no risk of a non-ambulatory occupant taking it out for a joyride and having an accident.
The Ideal Patient Transport Wheelchair
It is also constructed to be easily steered by the attendant and has a side-loading design so that the patient can slide or be slid easily from chair to bed MRI machine and back again without all the lifting and backing in that is necessitated by standard chairs. Thus this super-chair increases efficiency of manpower by reducing the number of attendants needed, as well as reducing the risk of injury to either hospital workers or patients.
This reduction in man-hours used, along with theft-prevention more than make up for the increased short-term costs, meaning that in a very short time the alternative transport chair pays for itself.
Beyond this, the chair can be equipped, utility belt fashion, with numerous accoutrements such as oxygen tank holders that make caring for and transporting patients a much easier and more efficient process.
Auto-locking brakes and sturdy construction is not always factored in with the purchase of standard chairs. It is a given that many of them will find their own way out of the facility before there's ever a chance of parts wearing out. This makes this transport chair an invaluable support vehicle for patient transport superheroes.
