Essential helpcare is changing the way hospitals manage bariatric patients. Facilitating a shift from reactive to proactive care, with the goal of better health outcomes, fewer injuries to staff, as well as patients — and ultimately, shorter stays.
It’s about so much more than having the right equipment. We look after the whole picture. Helping you be more prepared, providing pathways out of hospital, and improving process along the way.
3 Steps Forward.
Getting bariatric patients mobile and discharged home as quickly as possible is a key aspect of their recovery. Pre-admission planning, ensuring suitable infrastructure and equipment, encouraging early mobility and addressing potential complications is crucial for a smooth recovery process.
Preparation
The essential hours.
The first few hours of a patient’s stay in hospital are crucial. Too often, things that aren’t quite right to begin have a serious knock-on effect, leading to falls, loss of mobility, pressure injuries and other complications.
Having the right equipment in place in those first few Essential Hours help reduce the length of stay of a patient. Which is the goal for everyone involved.
Later. Sicker. More urgent.
Bariatric patients are more likely to put off seeking
medical help. So, more often than not, they arrive at
hospital after hours, and in worse health than they
would’ve been had they come earlier. That’s why our
service doesn’t sleep, with an average response time of
37 minutes — no matter what time of day.
Preparation is everything.
Make sure you’re always ready for an after hours arrival with our Bed & Basics Package. Stored onsite, connected to one of our Kiosks, you’ll have the essentials on hand: a bariatric bed, mattress, disposable pack, bed pan, gown, and blood pressure cuff.
The Essential Trigger System
ensures you always have the Bed & Basics Package available. When one bed is taken from the kiosk it alerts us to deliver a new one (within the hour). And while our expert staff are there, they’ll also do a safety check of the bed you’ve just engaged, assess all the equipment, and give any specialised training that’s necessary for your staff.
Pathways
Movement is Essential
The key to getting patients out of hospital, is to get them up and moving as soon as possible. Every day spent in bed makes it harder, as muscles waste away at an alarming, exponential rate.
While some are too unwell to get moving, many bariatric patients are simply held back by a lack of suitable equipment. This can lead to disastrous medical outcomes, delaying discharge — or worse. Not to mention the threat of injury to staff.
Bariatric patients are at high risk of becoming complex long-stayers — days become weeks become months.
Up & Going packages
are designed to get patients moving, as soon as they can. They include a seating product, a mobility item, and piece of hygiene equipment
Safety check
Within 24 hours of ward admission, an Essential Gear Medic performs a 3×3 safety check, with emphasis on the equipment, the nurse, and the patient. Bedside education and support is provided, and if required, can be repeated every 48 hours.
Our Gear Medics are highly trained, accredited and extremely knowledgeable. They are skilled in correct equipment set-up, and training to eliminate barriers to patient recovery.
Beyond Hospital
We have packages to support patients after they are discharged. Our Hometime Bundle provides equipment and support in the home environment, while the Long Term Care Bundle can be set up in whatever kind of care facility a patient might move on to.
It’s our goal to shorten the length of stay for bariatric patients.
Process
Bariatric Excellence Dashboard
The most essential bed we provide, is B.E.D., our Bariatric Excellence Dashboard. It gives you live data to help you manage bariatric patients in your hospital, with automated monthly cost assurance and trend reporting.
All the onscreen information is customisable to suit your needs.
Whether it’s keeping an eye on average length of stay, patient and staff outcomes, or incidents and injuries, B.E.D. makes sure nothing gets missed.
You can also set up triggers within the system, to help stay on top of more complicated patients. It could be the admission of someone over a certain weight or width, to ensure they’re receiving the additional care they need.
Bariatric Blueprint Brainstorm
When it comes to best practice bariatric care, we know a thing or two. We provide equipment, education and support to over 100 hospitals in Australasia, and we’ve partnered with the world’s best researchers in the field for over 12 years.
A Bariatric Blueprint Brainstorm is a chance to discover and discuss the unique needs of your hospital, and find ways to improve your.
Our Bundles
The cost of not
The cost of not doing something — what economists call opportunity cost — is frequently shown to be a false economy. What we call “the cost of not.”
The true cost of ‘not’ providing seamless, well supported care for larger patients can be demonstrated by real stories of bariatric mismanagement from hospitals in Australasia.
An appointment delayed
A bariatric patient needed a transfer to another hospital for an appointment. A bariatric ambulance was requested, but his transfer was delayed, and cancelled three times because no suitable ambulance was available.
We are always on hand for acute care deliveries. One hour max delivery time, 24/7, guaranteed. Specialist bariatric equipment — including a bed, walking trolley and body hoist — allows the patient to be transferred directly and safely to reduce pressure injuries.
Shortages laid bare
A patient was admitted to hospital, but the bariatric bed had a deflated mattress. With no other bariatric beds available, the patient had to lay on the bare metal bed for six hours while the NUM organised a purchase order for a loan bed from an external vendor.
Preventative maintenance services for bariatric beds ensures proper functionality and safety for patients at all times. In the event of equipment failure Essential helpcare offers a free replacement loan, delivered within 60 mimutes, 24 hours a day.
An undignified end
A short bariatric patient weighing 250kg passed away, and was transferred to the mortuary. Without a trolley and body bag to fit, the patient was stored in their bariatric bed from the ward, and wrapped in builders plastic.
We are always on hand for acute care deliveries. One hour max delivery time, 24/7, guaranteed. Specialist bariatric equipment — including a bed, walking trolley and body hoist — allows the patient to be transferred directly and safely to reduce pressure injuries.
False economy
Recently, a hospital manager advised us they would no longer use our chairs. It was a way of saving money, until they realised patients were no longer getting up and out of bed – which meant they were no longer getting out of hospital. Needless to say, the chair service is now back in use.
We are always on hand for acute care deliveries. One hour max delivery time, 24/7, guaranteed. Specialist bariatric equipment — including a bed, walking trolley and body hoist — allows the patient to be transferred directly and safely to reduce pressure injuries.
Nurses becoming patients
One hospital reported 15 different nurses being injured due to one patient that they were not prepared for. The patient also ended up having an extremely long stay in hospital.
We are always on hand for acute care deliveries. One hour max delivery time, 24/7, guaranteed. Specialist bariatric equipment — including a bed, walking trolley and body hoist — allows the patient to be transferred directly and safely to reduce pressure injuries.