Where Did All The Transporter’s Go!?

by SonoguruJanuary 2, 2019January 7, 2019

Does anyone remember when you had a transporter to go get your patient’s from the floor and bring them down and take them back? What happened to them? Why now are we expected to take a handful of patient orders and an ultrasound machine that weighs a ton and is hard to push and manipulate, only to get to the patient’s room to find out we need to move a bed over, move a bedside table, move an IV pole with a hundred cords tangled everywhere on it, then get the patient situated and finally scan.

We preach about ergonomics and MSK injuries so who thought it would be encouraging to lug a system up to however many floors to rearrange furniture to get a test done only to pass by Cat Scan a couple hours later and see that same patient waiting in a wheelchair to have their Cat Scan done. What about the people that were working for that $10 an hour by bringing our patients to us and taking them back up to their rooms after their test that they took away? From the kids still in high school, or people in college putting themselves through, or even the older gentlemen that just enjoyed that as a part time job that got them out of the house for a bit. For us multi taskers transporters helped with time management in our busy daily routines. For instance after you call to have a patient brought down, you could utilize that time to catch up on paperwork, or get one of the out patients done, in the time it takes for transport to bring down your patient especially if the patient is traveling with and IV pole the in between time is used wisely.

I’m well aware that there are times when it is definitely beneficial to do the exam bedside, however, this is where I struggle on how certain facilities do things. I did a travel job at a place where they go up and get their own patients in a wheelchair or bed and bring them down, scan them, and take them back up. I’m currently at a place where at least six to ten in patients a day including ER patients are needed to be done, and the way they do portable is timing them around the out patient schedule and then one person will go up and do one or two come back down and then it’s the next person’t turn to go up and do a couple. You see the sonographer’s at this facility go on their PACS system and count how many each person has done so far, and then again at the end of the day. Just part of the reason why they share the portable inpatients, the other reason is because as I said previously about rearranging a patient’s room and how it’s unfair for one or the same person to have to do that in multiple rooms. I remember my first ultrasound job in a hospital that had nine floors, around 500 or more beds, and I would take a handful of portables and go to the floors and be gone until almost lunch time. It got me out of the department with all the complaining and gossip, I loved it.
What do you think? How does your facility handle this?