Evaluation of patient transfer assistance systems for nursing personnel at a residential home for the elderly

In this paper we compare and evaluate different time segments of patient handling transfer techniques at a residential nursing home for the elderly. Nursing personnel were accompanied over three weeks and transfer techniques between bed and chair were recorded with a stopwatch. The total transfer time of a patient transfer is divided into three segments: preparation, transfer and dismantling time. The nursing staff at the residential nursing home makes use of three transfer techniques: the ubiquitous manual transfer, transfers with slide sheets and transfers using floor lifts. These transfer techniques have been analyzed and compared showing that floor lifts require significantly more time in all three segments (311 s) than slide sheets (115 s) and manual transfers (74 s), while slide sheets only slightly increase the time taken to accomplish a comfortable repositioning of the patient. The manual transfer is still by far the most popular method, despite numerous studies that have evaluated such methods hazardous. New devices are necessary that must accommodate a safe transfer and be as fast as a manual transfer in order to be accepted among nursing staff as the demand for professional nursing staff continues to rise.