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Tallahassee Memorial Purchases Smart Beds To Provides Safety & Comfort to Patients & Staff
Tallahassee, FL –The safety of a hospitalized patient can be positively impacted by the hospital bed of the future. That future is now at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. This week, Tallahassee Memorial will replace all of the adult medical-surgical beds in the main hospital, 10 beds in the Behavioral Health Center, cribs for pediatrics, and more than 50 high-tech stretchers for transport and procedural areas will be added.
“When we talk about beds, we are talking about the environment in which 100% of our patients will be cared for and our patients come in every size and shape and have a wide variety of clinical needs.” says Barbara MacArthur, RN, MN, FAAN, Vice President/Chief Nursing Officer of Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.
The Stryker S3 bed series was chosen and it delivers intuitive, advanced technology while providing a higher quality of care safely, conveniently and consistently.
“We needed to explore new technology, materials and surfaces that provide a safe, comfortable place to rest, sleep, and move for patients.
Additionally, we needed to consider the ability for our nursing staff to access the patient for care, respond to emergencies, weigh patients, reposition those patients who have limited mobility and avoid injuries to themselves during these interventions.” says MacArthur.
One of the innovations of the new bed is its “Chaperon” feature which monitors the actual location of the patient in the bed. The “Bed Awareness” electronics in the bed monitor the patient in the bed and alerts caregivers visually, audibly or remotely if preset parameters are compromised. “This feature will allow our clinical staff to monitor our patients more closely and increase safety for our patients.” says MacArthur.
The new beds also offer exclusive “Stay Put” frame technology that keeps the patient’s relative location essentially unchanged when the head of the bed is raised. This helps reduce the need for patient repositioning, while keeping the patient close to bedside belongings as the bed is articulated helping to reduce the risk of patient falls.
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About Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare
Founded more than 60 years ago, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is a private, not-for-profit community health care system that includes a 772-bed acute care hospital, a psychiatric hospital, a Rehabilitation Center, a Family Medicine Residency Program and five satellite Family Medicine Practices in surrounding counties of the Big Bend Region. TMH is the eighth-largest hospital in Florida with a Medical Staff of 500 physicians representing 50 different specialties. For more information, visit www.tmh.org.