Page 38 - Mobility Management, November/December 2021

focus on environment By Laurie Watanabe
When Wheelchairs Are Used in Facilities
Environment is always a key factor in a seating and wheel- chair evaluation. The rougher
terrain of a rural home — or a kinder- garten playground — could impact the wheelchair team’s decisions on wheelchair bases, seating and posi- tioning, wheels, tires, and more.
But it can also be important
to know when a wheelchair will
be used in a group home, skilled nursing facility, assisted living center, or any other venue besides a private home.
Dave DeRoin, Vice President of Sales at Broda, explained why.
Managing Wheelchairs with Multiple Caregivers
Mobility Management: If a wheel- chair user lives in a facility, do we need to assume that there will be multiple caregivers handling that wheelchair, and that those care- givers might turn over frequently, so they may not have a great deal of familiarity with the wheelchair? Dave DeRoin: Yes, I think that’s a consideration. Turnover in a facility can be quite high, so a lot of manu- facturer’s reps go in and spin our wheels in educational in-services
to show the different shifts of care- givers how to properly use the chair. We certainly do that. But turnover is always an issue.
With the many people handling the wheelchair, one of the things that we like to do is build the chair not only for the patient — which is the primary importance — but also build it for the caregiver. Absolutely, ease of use is extremely important. In fact, some feedback that we
got caused us to label the cylinder assemblies on our chairs that create the function for tilt and recline. So we label those with a numbering system now, and we can tell people, “This is the [function] you do first, this is the one you do second, this is the one you do third.” Doing that has cut
down on some of that educational in-servicing we’ve needed to do. MM: So if the person qualifies for a
tilt system, it’s a medically neces- sary system. But if it’s difficult for the caregiver to use, then they end up reclining before tilting, for example.
I assume that as the manufacturer, you’re thinking, “The easier we can make it for somebody to use our tilt mechanism, the more likely they are to use it as clinically intended.”
Dave DeRoin: That’s exactly right, and that’s really why we created that kind of numbering system. Because we noticed that the easier cylinder to activate was the recline, and so what most people would do is they would activate that and never even activate the tilt — which, as you can imagine, causes a whole other set
of problems. That’s why we created these numbering systems with a bright sticker on the back to say, “Do this first, then do this.”
We’re not the only manufacturer [with wheelchairs] inside the facility. And so we would be crazy to think that all of these caregivers can memorize everything there is to know about every type of chair that’s in their facility. We always look for ways to make it easier.
MM: Because not all systems work in the same way or in the same order. So you’re doing what you can to make yours easy with the
hope that it will be used properly and according to what the clinician suggests?
Dave DeRoin: Yes. From the thera- pist to the doctor to the ATP, they’re prescribing that chair for a specific reason, and we just want to make sure we’re doing our best to help keep their patients compliant.
Supporting the Facility’s Disinfection Protocols
MM: Infection controls and cleaning are always important in facilities and in healthcare, but during the pandemic, everybody became much more aware of them. I presume another factor important to you is that your chairs are easy to clean and are durable? That they can stand up to a lot of cleaning?
Dave DeRoin: With these cleaning protocols, it was probably time for
a reset. Not that the pandemic’s been great, but there are things that we’re all putting into practice now that should have always been in practice. I think we’re all just really cognizant of washing our hands, which we should have been doing, but this kind of gave us a reset. And the same goes with chairs.
I think we paid more attention in the last two years to making sure people understand the types of cleaners that work on our chairs, how to clean them, what parts
36 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021 | MOBILITY MANAGEMENT
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CLEANING PROTOCOL: DEPOSITPHOTOS..COM/DMYRTO_Z