Bed making improvements

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Mar 14, 2007

I filled out your survey, but I think there's something important missing from your proposed project: how an automated device would address the surgical patient who cannot be moved by machine, the patient tangled in sheets and blankets, the patient attached to IV tubing galore.

I see no way that the device suggested, that according to your survey would "automatically pull up both the sheet and comforter (we don't use comforters, by the way)" would be effective or appropriate.

I can just see IV tubing getting caught up in whatever this device is....yikes!

This device could not detangle the pts, or remove soiled linen, which is usually the reason for the bed change in the first place. Nurses aren't frustrated by having to merely pull up sheets and blankets when we're short on time; that takes two seconds. We're frustrated by repositioning cumbersome patients with many pillows and having to do bed changes for the incontinent. Although the techs and aides do most of it, when they're available, we definitely do it too.

Now, find a way to devise something that extends the controls currently on the siderails to be in reach of the obese patients we frequently get, and you're on to something. We often see patients who are so large they cannot reach (or have great difficulty reaching) the buttons on the inside of the siderails to raise and lower the head/foot of the bed. So they hit the call light and ask us to raise and lower their head, when if they weighed a hundred or so pounds less, they could see around their girth and GET to the buttons. Something like a remote that could be attached to the siderail with a long neck, or something that could be attached to the callbell, that would be nice.

THAT I'd like :)