Robotic patient transfer device launches at Ottawa hospital
Inventor says health-care workers hope to provide 'compassionate care,' not lift people
A robotic platform designed to transfer patients in and out of hospital beds with the press of a button launched last week at five Canadian hospitals, including Bruyère Health Saint-Vincent Hospital in Ottawa.
The ALTA Platform is the creation of Toronto-based Jayiesh Singh, CEO and co-founder of Able Innovations.
Singh told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning he wants to free up healthcare professionals to "provide compassionate care" and "protect themselves from career-ending injuries."
Transferring a patient is labour-intensive and can happen hundreds of times a week, according to Paula Doering, Bruyère Health's senior vice-president of clinical programs.
Bruyère Health was the first organization to start using the ALTA Platform. Doering said she quickly saw its value for the health and time of health-care workers, as well as for patients.
"Our staff see this as a tremendous time-saver, because it doesn't take three or four people to transfer a patient," Doering said. "It's one individual with the push of a button."
The Ontario Nurses' Association said it could not find a representative to comment by deadline, and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union did not respond to a request for comment.
Singh's mother worked in long-term care facilities. He volunteered with her as a teen and remembered watching her injure herself — on one occasion dislocating her shoulder — and develop chronic backaches due to her work.
Later in life, as an engineer, he expected to see other people applying robotics to the problem. He found no one, but healthcare workers kept telling him how much they needed a solution.
"That gave me the conviction to go on my own," Singh said.
'Compassionate care'
Shortly after starting with Bruyère Health, Doering said she visited Carleton University, where Singh and his team were working on the prototype.
Staff, patients, and patient families were invited to provided feedback on the device. Doering remembered one particularly tall man named Greg who asked for padding at the head and foot of the bed.
"And [Singh's] team was there to do that," she said. "His team have really been there listening to our patients, our families and our staff and developed a terrific platform."
Singh said the device isn't intended as a way to replace healthcare workers, and Doering said it "absolutely will not" replace staff at Bruyère Health.
"There is such a spiralling dynamic of short staffing, leading to additional burden, and that's leading to people leaving, and the reality is we need to invest in technologies that de-burden our frontline staff and allow them to do what they really want to do," Singh said.
"Healthcare workers get into the profession to provide compassionate care."
The ALTA Platform also launched at St. Joseph's Health Care London, Nova Scotia Health, Vancouver Coastal Health and the University Health Network in Toronto.
Singh said he'll spend the next two years building relationships and proving that the device is a significant improvement for patients and healthcare workers.
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