Nursing is strenuous work, especially if you work in emergency rooms or nursing homes where patients need to be constantly or rapidly lifted and moved. If your Head of Nursing has not seen the latest in medical equipment and supplies, you could introduce him or her to convertible lift chairs. These chairs can provide all of the following benefits for you and your patients, including saving your back when you have to lift obese patients.

Lifting and Transferring Heavy Patients with Ease

A big part of working in the emergency room is that you have trauma patients and accident patients coming in on gurneys and they need to be moved to exam tables. When those patients weigh more than two hundred pounds, it takes a few extra people to lift the patients carefully and quickly so that they are not injured further and you do not hurt your back in the process.

If your hospital invested in some convertible lift chairs, then with a few quick adjustments the chairs turn in to exam tables. These "tables" also have hydraulic lifts underneath. The convertible chair-turned table raises and lowers to save you from having to lift an obese patient high enough to get onto the exam table. It also lowers enough so that the slide from the gurney to the "table" is at the same height as well. There is less strain on your back, arms and legs because the lift chair/table does most of the work for you.

Less Lost Staff Time and Less Expense

Another benefit of using convertible lift chairs in your workplace is one benefit your boss and/or nursing scheduler may enjoy. Because the chairs help prevent injuries on the job, you and your fellow nurses miss less work and need fewer replacements for your shifts. That saves your nursing scheduler a lot of time and money because he or she will not have to find other nurses at the last minute to take your shifts or call in expensive temp nurses to help out.

It also means a reduction in costs for workers' compensation insurance, which can become more costly when more nurses are injured at work (and the injuries could have been prevented with an investment in medical equipment). With all the money saved from preventing injuries, your Head of Nursing department can buy a few more convertible lift chairs for hospital use.

Converting to Fit Patients' Comfort Levels

Last but not least, your patients will get the most out of convertible lift chairs. The chairs quickly transform from table to reclining chair to vertical table to wheelchair, all with a few presses of the control buttons. Any patient who does not have a traumatic back or neck injury can remain strapped into the converting chair while it transforms, meaning you rarely have to transfer a patient out of the chair to fix the bed and then back into the chair or table. If you do need to transfer your patient to another wheelchair, then the convertible lift chair can match the seat height of the wheel chair and, with both arm rests removed from the wheelchair and the convertible chair, your patient just slides right across into the wheelchair, and back again when you need to put him or her into the lift chair.

For more information, contact a company like Corner Home Medical.

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