U.S. Patent Office issues notification of allowance to AirPal's inflatable patient positioning system

Feb 16 2011

AirPal, a medical device manufacturer headquartered in North Wales, Pennsylvania, has received notification of allowance from the U.S. Patent Office for its modular system of inflatable devices used to position patients for situations such as difficult airway management, laryngoscopies, diagnostic exams, surgeries, and related procedures.

The company, founded in 1982, now holds more than a dozen patents covering various inflatable and air-assisted patient positioning and transfer devices.

"This particular patent is key to our company's entry into an emerging new field of patient positioning, namely Safe Anatomic Positioning™, or the ability to raise, lower, and adjust selected parts of the body while the patient is on an operating table or in another hospital unit — without requiring nurses to manually lift patients and use towels or linens to prop them up," said Robert Weedling, founder and chairman of AirPal Patient Transfer Systems.

Nursing injuries due to lifting are at epidemic levels and it is believed these new systems will help protect staff against manual lifting injuries. "Moreover, surgeons and anesthesiologists are now beginning to use these inflatable systems to optimally expose selected areas of the body during intubations as well as certain surgical procedures. These capabilities are especially important when handling bariatric patients," Weedling said.

In addition to patient raising functions, the systems also have the capability of introducing heat, coolness, and pulsating pressure; enable improved patient hygiene; and offer a ventilating controlled incline capability that can automatically adjust the position of a patient in response to monitored changes in the patient's breathing.

SOURCE AirPal