Waverley Glen Systems Ltd.

Established 1987

116 Rayette Road, Unit 1

Concord, ON

Canada L4K 2G3

Phone: [phone]

www.waverleyglen.com

Product innovation and enlightened financial decision making

The history of assistive devices has been an interaction between product innovation and enlightened financial decision making in both the public and private sectors of the healthcare market. To take wheelchairs as an example, innovation first expressed itself in the replacement of rigid, wood-and-metal wheelchairs with light, foldable, tubular wheelchairs. Then came the subsequent evolutions of self-drive motorized wheelchairs instead of attendant-propelled manual chairs and seating-and-positioning wheelchairs instead of one-type-fits-all models. Enlightened financial decision making expressed itself in public funding of assistive devices for private use, enabling the mobility-impaired to resume productive lives or at least stay out of prohibitively expensive institutional care. It also expressed itself in investment in productivity-enhancing and injury-reducing equipment in the institutional environment. The changeover from hand-cranked hospital beds to electric beds is an example.

Zero lifting: product innovation

The history of transfer devices follows the pattern of other assistive devices, though the paths of innovation and financial decision making may have been more tortuous. The objective of transfer devices is straightforward enough. It is to effect surface-to-surface transfers of the mobility impaired (bed-to-wheelchair, wheelchair-to-toilet, operating table-to-stretcher and so on) within manual weight limits that are safe to the caregiver. But "zero-lifting," as safe transfers are known, has not proven easy to achieve. Transfer devices currently or at one time in use include bed trapezes, rope ladders, inflatable cushions, turntables, patient rollers, patient handling slings, bathtub lifts, lift sheets, gait belts, walking belts, transfer disks, transfer boards, garbage bags, hydraulic floor lifts and electric floor lifts. All these interventions have the effect of reducing manual handling, but none achieves "zero lift." The one device that does is the ceiling lift, a 20-year-old (first European, then Canadia n) technology consisting of a motorized lift that runs along a ceiling-mounted track.

Ceiling lifts: enlightened financial decision making

Toronto-based Waverley Glen introduced ceiling lift technology into North America 12 years ago. Initially viewed as a high-end niche application, the technology's universal financial benefits have become widely recognized. Ceiling lifts contribute to deinstitutionalization by allowing even a frail family member to perform otherwise stressful and dangerous transfer tasks. Also, the ceiling lift by itself replaces the traditional array of hydraulic floor lift, toilet commode, raised toilet seat, Versa frame, bath transfer bench and bath lift. In the institutional market (acute care, chronic care and special environments such as schools and pools), ceiling lifts are emerging as the one transfer device that prevents caregiver musculoskeletal injuries from patient handling. The financial significance of such injury prevention cannot be overestimated. Incident reporting and worker's compensation statistics on injuries from manual patient handling consistently place healthcare workers in one of the highest categori es of occupational risk in North American society.

Waverley Glen

Waverley Glen maintains an exclusive focus on the development, manufacture and worldwide distribution of ceiling lifts. Proudly aware of the engineering and funding history of assistive devices, the company sees itself carrying on the tradition into the new millennium with its ceiling lift solution.