Moving the Bariatric Patient

The health care team must be able to mobilize bariatric patients efficiently and safely. It is challenging to find the proper equipment of sufficient variety to meet the need. Patients can feel self-conscious when staff are struggling to provide care, and staff can be injured when trying to mobilize patients without the proper equipment. This can result in feelings of humiliation for the patient and frustration for staff. Furthermore, staff often experience compassion fatigue when dealing with their frustration around this. This bariatric surgery unit experienced these issues with mobilization of larger patients and participated in the development of a Safe Patient Handling and Mobility program in an effort to gain understanding of the necessary equipment and how to implement such a program. The purpose of this article is to describe the successful implementation of a Safe Patient Handling and Mobility program to reduce staff injury and frustration and to improve the patient experience on a bariatric unit.