You wake up, sit up in bed, turn 90 degrees and put your feet on the floor. It takes less than 10 seconds, and you do it every day.
But what if you couldn”™t?
It would take two people to roll you to one side and then place your body in a sling. They”™d attach the sling to a device called a Hoyer Lift ”” a portable crane originally designed to lift an engine out of a car ”” which uses a hydraulic piston to lift you out of bed and swing you to a wheelchair. It might take 10 minutes, maybe longer, and you”™d have to go through the same process in reverse to get back into the bed.
But a new device could change all that.
On the second floor of a warehouse on Norwalk”™s Wilson Avenue, Next Health Inc.”™s small staff is filled with enthusiasm for their first product, the AgileLife System, which the company believes will ease the arduous and often painful process for the immobile or bedridden forever.
“This is really revolutionary,” said Next Health President Ray Curatolo, who worked at IBM for 30 years before joining Next Health in 2013. “Why does an IBM guy get involved? Because this is technology. Some very sophisticated engineering work has been done in conjunction with some very sophisticated software, which will enable someone to be moved from a bed to a wheelchair or a wheelchair to a bed without lifting them.”
At first glance, the AgileLife System”™s bed looks like an ordinary hospital bed, and the integrated wheelchair looks pretty ordinary as well. But when a patient in the wheelchair is backed up to the foot of the bed, a caregiver can transfer the patient to the bed at the touch of a button ”” with minimal physical interaction.
When the transfer is started, the foot of the bed comes up to the same angle as the back of the wheelchair. The caregiver then lowers the wheelchair”™s back and helps the patient lean against the mattress. The foot of the bed lowers the patient so his or her back is parallel to the floor, and then a scrolling mattress top, like a conveyor belt, gently draws the patient from the wheelchair onto the bed. It”™s all done without lifting and with only one instance of contact between the patient and caregiver.
“Caregiver satisfaction goes through the roof,” Curatolo said of how the product has been received. “As for someone using the device, a patient at Smith House has communicated to us that it”™s just night and day over what the traditional means of moving them had been. We”™ve brought dignity back into their lives.”
There are 10 AgileLife Systems in the field, at facilities including Smith House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Stamford and Ability Beyond in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Eleven more units are ready to ship, with 25 more under construction at Next Health”™s Norwalk facility. Curatolo said he expects between 40 and 50 units to be in use by the end of the year.
In addition to the assembly, Next Health”™s staff, including project manager Jeff St. Pierre and chief engineer David Beckstrom, are continuously working on new modifications. The company is developing a chair with a wider seat to accommodate larger patients and a wheelchair that can tilt back like a recliner.
Each AgileLife unit is leased out for about $85 per day, or $2,500 per month. But stretched out, the potential economic impact of the device is immeasurable. Less patient lifting means fewer injuries to caregivers and patients, as well as reduced costs across multiple channels for long-term care facilities. It could also mean less of a need for patients to stay at long-term care facilities when they AgileLife System could potentially allow them to return home.
“Depending on the situation, $2,500 a month for the system to allow the patient to return home is a lot less than $8,000 to $12,000 to be in an institution,” Curatolo said. “This device could be used in a hospital facility, follow the patient to a rehab facility like Smith House, and then back to a private home with them.”
