Platform Beds and Safe Patient Handling in Inpatient Psychiatric Units: Design Recommendations and Potential Solutions

The area of inpatient psychiatry presents many unique challenges to organizations seeking to implement safe patient handling (SPH). With existing equipment such as ceiling-mounted lifts providing opportunities for patients to harm themselves or others, and floor-based or sit-to-stand lifts proving incompatible with the platform beds present in almost all inpatient psychiatric units, maintaining a work environment that reduces the risk of back and other musculoskeletal injury is difficult. This article describes the process by which a list of 14 design criteria were developed for a height-adjustable platform bed and 5 criteria describing changes that could be made to existing SPH equipment by vendors in order to reduce the potential risks to healthcare staff when caring for patients on a platform bed.

Monaghan HM, Bulat T

Keywords: safe patient handling, inpatient psychiatry, platform beds