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Breathable Repositioning Sheet by SPH Medical
CategoriesPatient Handling,  Pressure Ulcer Prevention,  Slings and Lifts

Repositioning Sheets Reduce Nurse Injury & Pressure Ulcers

by sphmedicaladmin

Elevating Care: How Breathable Repositioning Sheets Transform Safety

Manual patient repositioning is a leading cause of career-ending injuries for nursing staff and a significant contributor to pressure ulcer development in patients. For decades, healthcare professionals have been asked to perform high-risk manual lifts, placing immense strain on their bodies. Simultaneously, immobile patients have suffered from painful and costly pressure injuries due to the challenges of frequent turning. Today, this dangerous compromise is no longer necessary. The integrated use of breathable repositioning sheets with overhead lifts creates a profoundly safer care environment, protecting staff and patients alike.

This article will detail how this innovative system provides a dual benefit: it dramatically reduces nurse injury rates while drastically improving patient skin integrity. By adopting this technology, facilities can align with the highest standards of Safe Patient Handling (SPH).  This fosters a true culture of safety that protects their most valuable assets—their caregivers and the patients they serve.

The Critical Link Between Patient Repositioning and Staff Injury
For too long, the physical demands of patient care have been accepted as “part of the job.” The reality is that manual handling exposes nurses to unacceptable risks and directly impacts patient outcomes.

The Dangers of Manual Lifting

The biomechanical strain placed on a nurse’s body during a manual patient turn, boost, or transfer is immense. Research from OHSU’s Biodynamics Lab confirms that the forces exerted on the spine during these tasks far exceed safe limits, leading to a high prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs). According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare support workers, including nursing assistants, experience some of the highest rates of nonfatal occupational injuries, with overexertion and bodily reaction being a primary cause. These are not minor incidents; they are career-altering injuries that lead to chronic pain, lost workdays, and high workers’ compensation costs, ultimately driving talented professionals from the bedside.

The Patient Side of the Equation: Pressure Ulcers

The physical difficulty of manual repositioning creates a barrier to providing optimal patient care. When staff are fatigued, injured, or short-handed, the frequency of patient turning can decrease. This directly increases the incidence of hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs), which are not only painful for the patient but also incredibly costly for the facility. HAPIs lead to increased lengths of stay, require intensive wound care, and are considered a “never event” by many payers, placing a significant financial burden on the organization.

The SPH Solution: Repositioning Sheets and Overhead Lifts

An effective Safe Patient Handling program eliminates hazardous manual tasks wherever possible. The combination of breathable repositioning sheets and overhead lifts provides the ultimate solution for patient turning and boosting, removing the caregiver from the equation of lifting force.

What Are Breathable Repositioning Sheets?

These are not standard draw sheets. Breathable repositioning sheets are single-patient use sheets engineered from high-strength, low-friction material designed to stay under the patient. Their key feature is a breathable construction that allows air to circulate, protecting the patient’s skin microclimate by managing heat and moisture—a critical factor in pressure ulcer prevention. These sheets are incredibly strong, with typical weight capacities of up to 1000 lbs, making them a reliable solution for a diverse patient population, including bariatric patients.

Breathable Repositioning Sheet in action

The Power of Integration with Overhead Lifts

The true innovation lies in how these sheets seamlessly integrate with existing ceiling and mobile patient lift systems. The sheets feature durable straps that connect directly to the lift’s spreader bar. This allows a single caregiver to safely and smoothly reposition, turn, or boost any patient. The lift does all the work, completely eliminating the manual lifting force required from the nurse. This system is in perfect alignment with AORN and ANA SPHM standards, which call for the elimination of manual patient handling.

Unpacking the Dual Benefits: A Win-Win for Nurses and Patients

By implementing this integrated system, facilities can achieve a powerful return on investment through improved staff safety and enhanced patient outcomes.

Enhancing Nurse Safety and Workflow

The most immediate benefit is the dramatic reduction in physical strain on nursing staff. By removing the need for manual lifting during repositioning, the risk of back, neck, and shoulder injuries plummets. This leads to fewer lost workdays, a reduction in workers’ compensation claims, and improved staff morale and retention. The efficiency gains are also substantial. A task that once required three or four nurses to coordinate can now be performed safely by a single caregiver, freeing up valuable staff to attend to other critical patient needs.

Improving Patient Outcomes and Skin Integrity

For the patient, the benefits are equally profound. The breathable fabric of the repositioning sheet is essential for protecting skin integrity. It helps dissipate heat and moisture, preventing the skin maceration that often precedes pressure injury development. Furthermore, the frictionless movement provided by the sheet and lift combination virtually eliminates the risk of shear and friction.  These are two primary forces that cause skin tears and deep tissue injury. Facilities that adopt this system often report a measurable reduction in their HAPI rates.  And also importantly, improved patient satisfaction scores and significant cost savings.

Breathable Repositioning Sheets reduce risk of injury to nursing staff

Breathable repositioning sheets and overhead lifts is a combined system.  And itis not just an equipment upgrade; it is a fundamental shift toward a culture of safety. It provides a comprehensive solution that simultaneously protects caregivers from career-ending injuries and patients from painful, costly pressure ulcers. By investing in this breathable repositioning sheets, healthcare organizations make a definitive statement. That statement is that the well-being of their staff and the safety of their patients are both top priorities.

Is your facility ready to elevate its Safe Patient Handling program and protect its most valuable assets?

SPU Breathable Air Transfer Mattress reduces nurse injuries
Categoriesair transfer systems

Protecting the Protectors: Risk Reduction for Nurses with the SPH Air Mattress

by sphmedicaladmin

Every single day, health care workers around the world devote their time, their efforts, and their passion towards helping others to heal. They are caring for those in need of medical attention, and protecting patients from further injury. But what are we doing to help risk reduction for Nurses and health care workers?

Risk Reduction for Nurses

For those of us that do not work in a healthcare setting, it is so easy to take for granted the seemingly simplistic tasks health care professionals must undertake on a daily basis. But it is these very routine, common demands that present our nation’s RNs with the greatest risk for nursing injury.

In 2016, a study conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor found that over 50% of all injuries sustained by registered nurses involved a repositioning injury caused by overexertion or by improper lifting techniques, resulting in strains, sprains, and tears.

The fast-paced nature of the healthcare profession often sees registered nurses moving quickly and efficiently, but also in a position where the daily demands see them completing tasks without any support. One of the most prevalent risks faced by this community of public servants involves something as seemingly simple as moving their patients. On the surface, this task may appear as simple as it is mundane, but after carefully considering not only the frequency with which nurses must move their patients throughout each day, the sheer number of times they are required to do this each week within a hospital setting, in addition to the lack of support typically received by each nurse each time they are tasked with moving or adjusting a patient, it is absolutely no wonder that this activity is the #1 cause of injuries sustained by nurses on the job.

Fortunately, technology has come a long way in the development of safety protocols and in reducing risk factors faced by nurses every single day. The gold standard of the health care industry in completing patient transfers is the SPH Medical Air Powered Lateral Transfer System. This product allows healthcare professionals to move patients, to transfer them from one bed to another, or to adjust them in bed without exposure to all the risk-factors historically present while moving patients in a healthcare setting. The SPH Medical Air Transfer & Positioning System also offers medical facilities the following benefits:

  1. Enhanced Infection Prevention; SPU Transfer Mat reduces risk of cross contamination of deadly pathogens between equipment and people
  2. Single-use application ensures availability to RNs within their unit (*no laundry issues)
  3. Ease of use for healthcare providers—accessibility & inventory management
  4. Cost-effective product for medical institutions
  5. Maximize patient comfort and enhance experience during transfer
  6. Minimizes risk of injury to nurses during transfers and while moving or repositioning patients
  7. Means of streamlining a universal methodology of safe patient practices.
  8. Improved nursing safety and satisfaction when assistive devices are available = nurse retention

Historically speaking, the days of once having to pull a patient from a bed over to a gurney using a draw sheet or sliding board are, and should be, long gone. These methods are hazardous to medical staff, as they simply do not reduce the friction enough to make it safe.

Protecting the Protectors with an Air Powered Lateral Transfer System

Although products such as the Hovermatt and Stryker Glide to provide similar ease of transfer, the SPH Medical Air Powered Lateral Transfer System has been recommended by hospitals and nurses alike for all adult patients having to be transferred off the OR Table post-surgery in reducing the risk of injury for staff while also maximizing patient comfort and care. This system creates a thin cushion of air underneath an inflated mattress that reduces friction and helps staff ‘float’ patients from one surface to another.

The same systems can also be utilized to reposition patients up in their beds, addressing the other very-high risk task of ‘in bed repositioning’ or ‘boosting’ a patient. Once a manual task that required two nurses to take hold of a patient’s bed sheet and together lift the patient into position, the SPH Medical Air Transfer and Positioning System mattress is breathable and can stay underneath patients and be used to boost them up in bed.

Of all the products available, by far the gold standard of the medical field when it comes to transfers is the SPH Medical Air Powered Lateral Transfer System. This premier, industry-leading tool minimizes cross-contamination by being single-use while also ensuring that nurses have the products that they need to perform routine tasks without the risk of injury. Nurses and Health Care Workers around the world dedicate their lives to improving the lives of those around them. Using the SPH Medical Lateral Transfer Systems are one way we can reciprocate their care, compassion, and concern and help with risk reduction for Nurses and Caregivers.

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