Perioperative Patient Movement: Defining the Issues

Musculoskeletal injuries among nursing personnel required to lift and laterally transfer patients manually carries substantial injury, salary, and personnel replacement costs per incident. Unintended hypothermia in surgical patients has been researched and published with resulting recommendations, yet the problem remains. The primary purpose of this article is to question the potential effects that the use of a single transport-procedure-recovery platform might provide. The full range of surgical care that can be delivered using these platforms has not been explored, in part because of the newness of the concept. Numerous potential advantages will not be realized if a specific platform is not able to perform as well as, or better than, the current standard operating room tables and allow the performance of most of the procedures currently being performed.