Welcome to Atlas Lift Tech

Atlas Lift Tech provides lift team services to hospitals, nursing homes and care facilities on a contract basis. The idea behind Atlas is quite simple: we enhance patient safety while preventing employee injuries. Our lift teams do everything associated with safely lifting, transferring, repositioning, and moving patients so your staff doesn’t get injured. We coordinate with nurses, aides, therapists, and all other ancillary departments within the facility to assist with the heavy lifting of patients. Atlas lift teams provide a range of services to safely and skillfully accomplish your patient handling needs. Our lift teams handle everything from bed transfers and patient repositions to emergency and high-risk lifts, such as bariatric, non-weight-bearing, and fully dependent patients.

THE PROBLEM: Hospitals are dangerous workplaces, as indicated by a 2007 Bureau of Labor Statistics study, concluding that 6 of the top 10 most dangerous occupations for back injury are found in hospital settings. Nurses and CNAs are more than twice as likely as truck drivers and heavy tractor-trailer operators to be injured on the job. Over 50% of all nurses complain of severe back pain, nearly 2 out of 5 require time off from work for that pain, and 1 in 8 retire early due to debilitating injuries. In essence, hospitals are turning their staff into patients. And it’s not just staff who are getting injured—patients are also injured within healthcare facilities through drops, falls, and preventable pressure ulcers. This has created dissatisfaction for everyone involved:  patients, staff, and administrators.

THE SOLUTION: Fortunately, there is a clear and simple solution—the implementation of fully staffed, trained, and dedicated lift teams. Unfortunately, some institutions have instituted a partial solution, which often involves having the job done by the transport department or by personnel in some other department who are trained in both their specialty and patient lifting. Such cross-trained lift teams are ineffective, since these personnel are fully committed to their primary duties, yet still expected to provide lift team services. Thus, they are often unable to attend to nurses’ time sensitive lift needs, leaving the nursing staff to perform the lifts by themselves. In addition, since these cross-trained teams generally help only with the “high-risk” lifts, nurses are still left to do “normal” lifts, which put them at risk for debilitating back injuries.

Studies have shown that only the full implementation of trained and coordinated lift team experts in conjunction with lift equipment can radically reduce injuries and costs. Lift teams are generally 2 or 3 person teams responsible for lifting, moving, and repositioning patients. They are dedicated professionals who are experts in the movement of patients. They work together to safely move patients by using appropriate lifting equipment as needed. Lift teams have proven to substantially reduce and, in some cases, eliminate patient and employee injuries. Lift teams are utilized by all types and sizes of institutions—from University and teaching hospitals to community and general hospitals, whether they have 100  beds or 1,000.

LEARN MORE: If you are interested in learning more about Atlas and how we can help with your lifting and transport needs, please contact us.