subject: A Hospital Wheelchair Should Make Movement Easier For Everyone [print this page] A hospital wheelchair is as much a legal necessity as a physical requirement. This will help make sure that a patient doesn't come in for one thing and leave with a broken leg to boot. Often even people without mobility issues are required to be transported in and out of the building and to tests, exams, and other procedures in a wheelchair.
While this can feel a little ridiculous for the person involved and be time-consuming for hospital personnel, there are nonetheless, valid reasons for it. However, shouldn't the process be made as easy, efficient, and cost conscious as possible?
Hospital wheelchairs are a significant portion of any institution's budget, for all the reasons described above, as well as a few others. One of the biggest secondary reasons why hospitals and similar institutions spend so much money on chairs is that they have tendency to wander out the doors on their own. Well, not really on their own, but either under the power of the occupant or by another person who decides it would be really handy to have one without paying for it.
For this reason, the people in charge of this kind of thing are, quite understandably, inclined toward buying the cheapest chairs they can find. This keeps the replacement costs down on the surface, but in reality leads to yet another expense. Cheap chairs may be just that. They will have a shorter life expectancy due to general wear and tear, as well as sometimes not actually being designed to carry the weight they are asked to.
So, what can be done? Spending money on more expensive chairs that will last longer is all well and good, but they are in turn even more likely to be stolen, which sends the costs soaring.
The answer is in a different kind of hospital wheelchair. While for a long time, the focus on wheelchairs has been to increase the independence of their primary users, and rightly so, it took a very long time for the idea to blossom that there might need to be two kinds of chairs.
The ideal hospital wheelchair would be sturdy enough to carry up to 500 pounds (or twice that for a bariatric chair) but at the same time, sufficiently maneuverable that a single attendant could transport the patient. Other features that are also important in such a setting are armrests that raise quickly and easily so that a patient can be slid from bed to chair to exam table without lifting. This also means a slight raise in the general height of the chair so that it is level with most beds.
Another valuable aspect of the ideal hospital wheelchair is one that at first blush seems limiting, but upon consideration makes a great deal of sense. That is that the attendant, not the occupant, can only move it. Not only does this keep a patient from stealing a chair, but also it keeps those in danger of hurting themselves from being able to roam at will, possibly incurring injury.
Finally, this chair needs to nest - like shopping carts - so that it can be stacked with others in a central and secure location, to reduce theft and facilitate easy access.
Such a chair will cost more at the outset, but with the increased lifespan, both structurally and from not being stolen, the savings will be obvious almost at once.
by: Amy Hart
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
