Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Developing and Designing Patient Handling/Transfer Assistive Devices: Current & Future Designs

M any health care facilities deal with challenges associated with safe patient handling and movement. Back injuries are a serious problem for nursing personnel who perform frequent patient handling activities. The main objectives of this study are to demonstrate the necessity of patient handling/transfer assistive devices, explore the economic benefits of them, review current assistive patient transfer devices, and investigate design parameters of an ideal patient handling/transfer assistive device. This paper also focuses on the importance of the transdisciplinary collaboration in developing and designing patient handling/transfer assistive devices.