HMC Transfer Assessment Protocols (HMC-TAPs): A Multifactorial and Communicative Tool for Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Methods in Interdisciplinary Teams

To ensure safe patient handling and mobility methods (SPHMM), nursing and rehabilitation staff need to remain attentive to patient abilities, such as body functions and structures. Transfer assessment protocols (TAPs) can facilitate this process, while also promoting shared understanding among and between allied health professionals and other frontline caregivers. HMC, a Swedish national knowledge center, has developed such TAPs. This article aims to present measurement parameters for the HMC-TAPs, using one protocol for assistant nurses and another for rehabilitation staff. The TAPs were tested and analyzed based on a scientific framework, including the Rasch model, to yield separate measurements of person and item attributes, expressed together on the same conjoint interval logit scale. Key findings include an initial common construct theory and standardized language for information exchanges regarding a patient’s mobility status, using meaningful, comparable, practical, and scientific measurements of critical physical abilities for SPHMM. This is the first study to be conducted on HMC-TAPs, for which reason further research is warranted to build upon and advance the strengths and to overcome current limitations.

Melin J, Parmelund N, Gottfridsson M, Fisher WP

Keywords: safe patient handling, transfer protocol, patient assessment, interdisciplinary