MAATTAM – RETROFIT PATIENT TRANSFER SYSTEM

What it does

Maattam, a retrofit system for transferring patients between different rest units such as a bed or an operating table. It eliminates occurrence of secondary injuries for the patients, and reduces manual labour for the workers involved, during patient transfer.

Your inspiration

The scene I saw inside a hospital, wherein a grandmother was being shifted from one stretcher to another by lifting, and she was crying in pain due to the jerk and movement that was happening to her during the transfer. When I talked to more than 50 people including doctors, nurses, ward boys etc, they made it evident that there is no existing patient transfer mechanism that can efficiently transfer patients without causing any pain to the patients, at the same time reduce manual labour of shifting, which eventually is causing spine disorders to workers.

How it works

The mechanism works similar to a treadmill having a moving platform with a wide conveyor fabric belt and rollers on either ends. Motor drives one roller and the other roller is driven with a belt assembly. The moving platform connected to 2-way sliders at its either ends makes it move in both directions to collect / transfer the patient, the motion being controlled by a rack and pinion attached with a crank. Maattam being a retrofit can be put on top of any wheeled stretcher with flat top surface and height adjustment facility, converting it into a transfer stretcher. This can be then moved next to any stretcher where patient is lying. With the motor rotating the roller in clockwise direction, the fabric rotates. The moving platform is moved next to the patient by hand cranking. As it goes underneath the patient, the body is collected and eventually when whole body comes on top of it, the platform is moved back to its position, and the patient is transferred.

Design process

I used Stanford and IDEO human centred design processes at various stages of the product development process. It all started with user research with various stakeholders asking the right questions. The research was conducted at 8 hospitals, connecting with more than 60 stakeholders. The ethnographic data was analysed and top insights were generated through affinity mapping. The insights decided the key factors to be considered for conceptualizing different ideas. Final concept was chosen after discussion with various stakeholders. A 1:2 scale prototype was fabricated with Mild steel and was tested by transferring a mannequin of weight 7kg, to check its functionality. Prototype was iterated again by incorporating a belt tightening mechanism and more rollers, for the belt to carry more load. The prototype was then tested with mannequin of 30 kg weight. The prototype underwent various iteration and usability testing to finally test it with a human body. A child of 24kg and 122cm was finally tested with prototype by transferring the child from a rest unit to the stretcher, and back to it. The user experience was found to be more than satisfactory when tested with more users. The retrofit prototype was tested in hospitals finally by putting it on top of wheeled stretcher and using it.

How it is different

Unlike all the other patient handling mechanisms, maattam is the only retrofit mechanism which can be fixed onto any existing wheeled stretcher, thus converting it into a patient transfer stretcher. The introduction of a complete new transfer system makes it difficult for hospitals to afford, wherein, the proposed low cost retrofit invention can be fitted onto any flat stretcher with height adjustment. Most transfer mechanism can approach the patient from only one side, but in maattam the 2-way slider mechanism enables to transfer the patient through both sides of the stretcher, extending its more adaptive nature. The existing mechanisms either slide, roll or drag the patient for transferring inducing lot of jerk and pain, but in maattam, the patient is transferred without any relative motion between patient and transfer platform causing no drag / friction during transfer.

Future plans

I am developing the full-scale model of the retrofit stretcher which would be able to transfer an adult of height up to 180 cm and weight of maximum 95 kg. The product once patented will be discussed with hospital equipment manufacturers to make it viable. The same concept if tweaked slightly can be used for transferring accident victims on the road. There is a large occurrence of worsening the condition of accident victims due to mishandling of victims from road to hospitals due to ineffective patient handling mechanisms. I am currently working on that concept also. The dream is to realize maattam, which would benefit a billions of people.

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