Deb Nelson gladly volunteered Wednesday for an event at which 500 nurses, therapists and other Memorial Medical Center employees learned about handling the growing numbers of overweight patients.
Nelson, 49, played the role of pretend patient while Memorial employees demonstrated special machines and ergonomically correct techniques to lift patients, help them walk and assist them in getting out of bed.
“It’s important that people make sure they know how to use the machines properly,” said Nelson, a former real Memorial patient. “If this helps other patients, I will be happy.”
Memorial has seen a steady increase in what it calls “patients of size” over the past decade.
'Dead weight' a concern
Thirteen percent of Memorial’s inpatients weighed more than 250 pounds in 2009, up from 10 percent in 2004; 4 percent of inpatients weighed more than 300 pounds.
Patients 250 pounds or heavier raise concerns for nurses and other hospital employees, said Rebecca Anderson, Memorial’s director of transplant and bariatric surgery services.
Today’s patient population is made up of “many of the sickest, most incapacitated folks,” she said. “What we call dead weight is very different from non-dead weight. A patient may not be able to say, ‘Hey, that hurts,’ or ‘Oh, you’ve got my skin pinched.’”
Memorial’s “Handle with Care” event supplemented existing training programs. St. John’s Hospital also has regular training on safe lifting techniques, chief nursing officer Ann Derrick said.
Memorial’s status as a bariatric surgery “center of excellence,” a title awarded in May by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, has made Memorial more attuned to the needs of larger patients, Anderson said.
Memorial’s bariatric surgery program serves about 200 patients a year, but hospital officials said most of those patients can walk on their own and seldom pose a high risk of injury to hospital employees. 
However, the hospital has acquired more beds that can hold patients weighing up to 1,000 pounds regardless of whether the patients are in Memorial for bariatric surgery. Memorial also has been upgrading its mattresses, wheelchairs, walkers, toilets and other items to accommodate heavier patients, Anderson said.
St. John’s is doing much the same thing. Both hospitals also have added larger furniture to accommodate overweight family members.
Derrick said St. John’s may outfit many patient rooms with ceiling-mounted lifts and other accommodations for overweight patients as part of a proposed $42 million renovation of patient-care areas.
Nelson, a former factory worker, was a Memorial patient for three months in 2006 to recover from an asthma attack, infection, pneumonia and two strokes. It was “real awkward and scary” to be unable to use her legs, she said, and some Memorial employees were better at using lifting machines than others.
“If they don’t know how to use the equipment, the patients are going to feel more nervous about it,” Nelson said.
Tips valuable
Jean Von Lehmden, 49, a physical therapist, said she learned that having a patient lean back in the harness when it is attached to a “sit-to-stand” lifting machine makes the patient less likely to be pinched or slip out of the harness.
Before Wednesday’s training, Von Lehmden said she sometimes avoided using the harness because she didn’t want the patient having a negative experience.
Bev Hendrix, a registered nurse on Memorial’s 2G bariatric surgery unit, said staff members need to be aware of patients’ emotions. For example, she said, it’s important for employees to make extra-large gowns and extra-wide wheelchairs available before patients arrive.
A ceiling-mounted lift can cost $7,000 to $14,000. A floor-based lifting machine can cost $4,100, and even a mesh harness can cost $350, said Don Cody, Memorial Health System’s ergonomics coordinator.
But an injured employee can cost a hospital thousands of dollars in medical bills and other costs, he said. Memorial received 71 reports of patient-handling injuries to its employees in 2009.
The challenge, Cody said, is reaching employees.
“Keeping these new technologies in front of the nursing staff is important, because they are incredibly busy,” he said. “Memorial is ahead of the curve in terms of the equipment we use and the support from administration. But it’s a culture change. It’s like turning a big ship.”
Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543.
Weightier patients
*The number of U.S. patients hospitalized for obesity — mainly involving gastric-bypass or other weight-loss surgery — more than doubled between 1994 and 2004, rising from 797,000 to 1.7 million.
*A nationwide survey indicated that 48 percent of hospitals have experienced increases in admissions of “morbidly obese” patients, or those 100 pounds or more overweight, since 2008.
*Two-thirds of all U.S. adults and nearly one-third of children and teens are obese or overweight. The number of obese adults has doubled since 1980.
*63.6 percent of adults in Illinois are overweight or obese.
*20.7 percent of Illinois children 10 to 17 are obese.
*Obesity is related to more than 20 chronic diseases, and obesity-related medical costs are nearly 10 percent of all annual medical spending.
Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the health-care supply company Novation, and Trust for America’s Health
Photo caption: Occupational therapist Jill Henson, left, and physical therapist Angie Pop assist Deb Nelson out of a hospital bed Wednesday during a demonstration on moving heavier patients at Memorial Medical Center. (T.J. Salsman/The State Journal-Register)
