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From: Eric Meittunen
Date: 05 Nov 2003
Time: 17:06:59 -0500
Remote Name: 129.176.151.122
Hello Everyone: I sincerely appreciate all of your help, advice, and comments regarding the issue of patient transfer incidents for healthcare staff. The comments from Ms. LaSalle regarding the effectiveness are well received and perhaps we should view the remedies for this challenging problem as more situational than having a sole specific remedy. I have been a tremendous advocate to implement devices that reduce the risk of musculoskeletal exposures since 1992, however in the 90’s we did not have nearly the options that are available today. Though the technology has improved resulting in a higher level of patient comfort and staff ease of use, we still have improvements that can be made to augment the devices for specific tasks. Considering the unique organizational and transfer task specific circumstances equipment and techniques can be augmented via the use of a transfer team. Benefits include reducing variation in the transfer techniques and more consistent use of devices for particularly challenging transfers. Though overtime the hope is that these techniques and devices become an integral part of the organizational culture; I believe that we all realize that this takes time. It is in this transition time period where a transfer team can be very effective for a typical institution. Please also note that the definition of a transfer team may vary among organizations and/or units. I hope that this information builds on your terrific information sharing web page. Yours, Eric Rochester, MN