It’s well established that choosing the right support surface has a significant impact on prevention of pressure injuries. In the case of an appropriate stretcher surface, dedicating time to careful selection is vital to ensuring this crucial care outcome is met throughout the continuum of a patient’s stay.
However, facilities should not overlook another essential element of stretcher selection — patient comfort and satisfaction. With patient satisfaction ratings playing a vital role in reputation management and even reimbursement, measures to ensure a positive patient experience are a top priority for every healthcare organization. It’s likely that almost anyone who provides care to patients has heard stories and complaints about the lack of comfort on hospital stretchers, but how often is this considered as part of the patient experience?
Stretchers are typically considered a short-term measure, designed primarily for ease of patient transport. They are routinely a part of procedural areas and the emergency department (ED), because they allow patients to be moved for testing and treatment without delays or excessive transfers from one surface to another.
The average stretcher mattress is narrow (26-30”) and around 3-4” thick with a rigid stretcher surface below and faces heavy use and wear-and-tear forces. For many patients, this can mean:
The reality of stretcher use in today’s busy hospital environment is that patients are often on these surfaces for many hours. Bed shortages, staffing shortages, delays in transportation time, and overcrowded EDs where ED boarding times and “hallway medicine” are common mean that safe, comfortable stretcher surfaces are essential.
To address this, some suppliers use foams borrowed from the consumer bedding industry – particularly viscoelastic “memory foams” or trendy gel-infused foams. While these materials are pleasing to the touch when new, their composition often fails to hold up over time. This robs them of long-term support, leading to the same problems as their traditional counterparts.
Savaria recognizes that the physics of stretcher design impact both safety and comfort. Effective pressure management relies on maximum surface area and surface height to allow the highest possible amount of immersion and envelopment.
Consider that a typical hospital bed mattress is both taller and wider than a standard stretcher mattress. This means that a stretcher mattress is being asked to do more with less. To counter this, it is essential that a stretcher support surface have as much mass and density as possible. Geo-Mattress ® UltraMax™ stretcher surfaces are always a full 5” high and include a core section made from proprietary Ultra High Performance (UHP) foam for additional comfort and support in the high-fatigue seat and trunk area.
With these features, patients can expect:
Additionally, the UltraMax™ supports patients up to 700 lbs. and comes with a non-prorated 3-year warranty, illustrating Savaria’s confidence in the ability of the mattress to withstand the typical wear-and-tear of raising and lowering the head of the stretcher and serving multiple patients across thousands of hours of use.
The premium quality and long-term durability of the UltraMax™ stretcher surface ultimately means that alongside reliability and reduced risk of pressure injury, facilities can expect a better patient stretcher experience as well, leading to higher patient satisfaction in connection with comfort.
With the patient experience often beginning on a stretcher surface, organizations who choose the UltraMax™ have the benefit of introducing patients to higher satisfaction and safety at the start of their hospital journey.
To learn more, get in touch with our experts today. We can help you ensure continuity of care across the spectrum of patient support surfaces.
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