Over the years, care of emergency patients beyond the hospital has become significantly more complex. You can see that in critical care transport and even regular EMS, where ambulances have come to carry more devices and technology – sometimes in alarmingly makeshift ways. As more equipment has been added, it’s become increasingly challenging to keep it both easily accessible when needed, yet securely immobilized during transit.
“We’ve done a lot to bridge the safety gap as far as collision safety goes,” observed Justin Reed, NRP, FACPE, assistant chief of EMS for the Cy-Fair Fire Department in Cypress, Texas. “We haven’t paid as much attention to what happens to those devices and other objects when physics interact with them and they go flying.”
With more than a decade of experience providing brackets, mounting systems and other solutions for the secure mounting and management of vital medical devices on stretchers and other surfaces in ambulances and beyond, Technimount System, with more than 50 distributors across North America, is among the first vendors you’d think of to mitigate such a gap. One way it does that with its Stretcher Safety Arm 500 model for Stryker stretchers.
Easy to install and use, the Stretcher Safety Arm 500 comes in both straight and angled versions and can be mounted on either side of most stretchers, depending on ambulance configuration, in under five minutes. Using the company’s Standard Surface Base, the arm provides 360-degree rotation and access to key devices (e.g., monitors, defibrillators, ventilators) from all angles, with multiple configurations and options to accommodate crew activities and patient care. This helps maximize workspace in the patient compartment while at the same time keeping devices secure: The Safety Arm 500 is tested for compliance with the SAE’s J3043 standard for ambulance mounting systems, ensuring items will be safely held and not become projectiles in a crash.
SAVING TIME, MONEY AND LIVES
Keeping life-sustaining devices convenient and accessible to caregivers is obviously important, but keeping them secured can be lifesaving. “The biggest thing for us,” said Reed, “is that the Safety Arm provides a way to secure our cardiac monitor so that it’s crash-rated but can still be used.”
This is significant, he added, “because a neighboring agency had a rollover accident, and a cardiac monitor actually came loose and hit an observer doing a ride-along in the head. It caused a serious injury and almost killed him.”
With the Safety Arm, Reed said, “The ambulance could be disintegrated, and that arm would still be there holding the cardiac monitor.”
Short of catastrophic crashes, the Safety Arm 500 also helps simplify operations for crews and provide a better patient experience where devices are kept out of the way of caregivers and each other, allowing care to proceed without interruption and with less risk of complication.
For Cy-Fair, even using a simple monitor sometimes led to those kinds of challenges.
“[We had] an issue when we would put a patient on a monitor,” explained the department’s Lt. Elizabeth Horton. “Then if we needed to move the blood pressure cuff, we had to untangle the wires to get it wrapped all the way around to the patient’s other arm and plug it back in.” This was cumbersome, she said, and took precious time away from patient care. Now the Safety Arm 500 allows users to organize and manage their medical devices and cables so they are convenient and accessible but free of entanglements.
The Safety Arm 500 also lets EMS teams position monitors so they can be seen by patients. “If we have an anxious patient who is worried about their vital signs, this gives them an opportunity to participate in their care,” added Horton. At the same time, if patients don’t want to see the monitors, screens can be turned away from them but remain easily accessible and visible to the EMS team.
STRONG CONSTRUCTION, MULTIPLE OPTIONS
The strength and durability of the Stretcher Safety Arm 500 come through its construction from high-resistance aluminum and stainless steel, with a silver-anodized finish that resists damage. The ambidexterity and shape options mean multiple arms can be used at once. It is compatible with Stryker’s MX-PRO, Power-PRO XT and Power-PRO 2 stretchers.
The Stretcher Safety Arm comes in straight and angled versions for both sides of the stretcher, and a special adapter lets an IV pole be used along with it. It’s installed and adjusted with an easy-to-use safety pin system, and with the addition of the Standard Surface Base, it provides secure attachment for any device equipped with a Technimount bracket with a standard bottom disc.
For even more flexibility, the company developed the Safety MD-Transporter, which provides a third attachment point when two Safety Arm systems are already in use. It can also be used as a standalone securement for ventilators or IV pumps. Available for both sides of the stretcher, it works for all Technimount products with an anti-rotation back disc.
FLEXIBILITY WINS OVER DOUBTERS
Change is hard, and new devices often generate pushback. The Stretcher Safety Arm 500 blunted that with its simple operation and minimal need for training.
“Getting it installed was easy,” Reed said; the only challenge was getting people to “stop doing things the way they always did before.” At first, he admitted, some didn’t see the need for something new. However, once they realized it made their work easier and safer, they embraced the Safety Arm. “Now they can’t live without it,” he added.
Flexibility was among the biggest features that won Cy-Fair crews over. “We had our arm on one side of the stretcher,” Reed said, “but we found that most equipment needed to load from the other side, so we were able to move the arm to accommodate that.”
Ease of maintenance is also important to emergency response teams. As Reed observed, “You just keep it lubricated and clean, and the Safety Arm is more reliable than any of the other technology we have on the vehicle.”
Compatibility with existing equipment isn’t an issue. “For instance,” Reed explained, “if you get a new cardiac monitor, you don’t have to get a whole new system – you just get a new bracket.” Technimount spends time with customers and asks questions about their ambulance, their personnel, what devices they use, and what special needs they have to help develop combinations of solutions that fit their requirements.
When a new product or device hits the market, it doesn’t matter how many bells and whistles it has if it doesn’t speak to the needs of customers. With Technimount, industry insiders like Reed know they are working with people who understand their challenges. The company has an EMS medical director with significant hands-on industry experience. At the same time, Reed said, “They are designing products they know will make a positive difference. They are solving problems we didn’t even know needed to be solved.”
He added that relationships are important, and Technimount’s customer service values user input – that’s why it added the left-side Safety Arm and angled versions to its initial right-side straight version. The company even seeks input from customers when products are still in development.
“They will ask for my feedback and really listen to me,” said Reed. “That is how you get a customer for life.”
For more information, visit Technimount System.
