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Product Application From the Field: April 2020
Getting a Handle on Difficult Lifts
Patients are getting bigger, and patients are living longer. What unites those trends is that neither makes life easier for the care providers who lift and move them. Bariatric patients present inherent challenges, but then so do the elderly and frail.
“Even with the 90-pound, 94-year-old grandmother who’s fallen,” says Scott Spencer, chief of Douglas County Fire/EMS in Douglasville, Ga., “if you just try to pick them up by the shoulder, you can actually dislocate the shoulder.” Bruising and tearing fragile skin is also a danger. “Unfortunately,” Spencer adds, “human beings don’t come with handles.”
The Binder Lift does, and it’s making life easier for Douglas County first responders.
An easy-to-apply torso wrap for patients who pose difficult lifts, the Binder Lift comes with 19–25 handles, a cushioned edge for patient comfort, and removable leg straps. Its nylon and vinyl versions have both won industry awards. The first is made of 1,000-denier Cordura nylon with polypropylene web strapping for the handles; the second of Bondcote vinyl-coated polyester. The leg straps are made from BioThane and impervious to bodily fluids. The nylon model is machine-washable, while the vinyl can be cleaned with a sanitary wipe.
Spencer discovered the Binder Lift at a 2019 chiefs summit and liked its potential. Further research led to a trial. “They sent us a couple of samples, and we took them around to our stations and let the folks use them and practice with them, and they fell in love with them,” Spencer says.
A combined department in suburban Atlanta with a call volume approaching 19,000 annually, Douglas County does a lot of lift assists. It placed Binder Lifts on each of its 10 fire apparatus with the idea that could help manage those calls and keep its ALS ambulances free for higher-acuity responses.
Previously its crews had used a popular tarp-style product for difficult patient moves. It got the job done, says Spencer, “but the Binder Lift just has so many more handles and is so much easier to use.”
With the devices on the streets for several months now, the department has yet to sustain a lifting-related injury.
