Being a nurse can be quite a stretch.
It’s not just the constant demands. It’s also height.
At Lakeridge Health in Oshawa, many of the nurses are 5’3″ or shorter. The pole they have to hang IV (intravenous) bags on is usually about 6 feet high.
It makes for quite a reach for those on the shorter side like Irene Smith, a registered nurse.
“We have patients with continuous bladder irrigation which are these large 3-litre bags that we have to put up. They’re very heavy. It can be quite taxing on the muscles,” said Smith.
Donna Murczek, a musculoskeletal injury prevention coordinator and physiotherapist working in Occupational Health and Safety at Lakeridge Health, researched the re-design of the IV pole. Murczek found that it wasn’t just a matter of changing the body mechanics of how the nurses were operating the equipment but it was the actual equipment that they were using that was the issue of injuries.
“[Nurses are] injuring their shoulders, their necks and their backs from attaching pumps and equipment and IV bags,” said Mark Chepurny, president of Notion Medical.
That design adjustment reduces the effort needed to lift the bags by 50 per cent.
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“The bags are heavy as it is. When you just have to place the bag here and the pull up a lever, it’s perfect,” said Smith.
That’s not the only improvement in this new ergonomic IV pole. Notion Medical has also made the base of the pole more stable and easier to maneuver. The new design has set the pole farther back so that when equipment is put on, it still maintains its proper balance.
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The old design had a base of five legs with a centralized pole. This means when equipment was attached to the pole, it would become very unstable. In some instances, the old IV poles would fall over onto the floor, nurses and even patients.
On the base of the ergonomic IV pole, there is a brake button which can be activated with a simple press of the foot.
An additional upgrade to the pole is a power bar. A nurse must plug in many electrical items into outlets that may be behind a bed or a chair. When a patient gets up to move to the bathroom or another area, they have to unplug all of these items and then re-plug them when they return. The power bar makes this process more convenient for nurses and patients.
Notion Medical launched the product in November 2012 after two years of design, tool up and field trials. They now have a small number of poles at Lakeridge Health with more on the way.
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