A breakthrough product developed in close collaboration with InnoScot Health is continuing to transform emergency patient management around the world

The latest beneficiaries of the Patient Transfer Scale (PTS) — a transfer board with an in-built weighing scale — have been patients in Louisiana where a case study has noted that the innovation has changed stroke protocol with “significant improvements in treatment times and patient outcomes”.

Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Regional Medical Centre in Baton Rouge recognised that “stroke management is a critical aspect of emergency medical care, where every second counts” and noted how PTS had “revolutionised their stroke management process”.

At OLOL, this included analysis of ‘door to puncture time’ — the period from patient arrival to when a thrombectomy in the centre’s interventional radiology suite was commenced — with it being found that PTS helped to enable an average decrease of 41 minutes.

‘Door to Needle times’ — the duration for a stroke patient to be assessed and receive intravenous thrombolytic therapy — was further found to have decreased by an average of four minutes.

The case study from US company Health o meter^® Professional Scales concluded that “by incorporating the Patient Transfer Scale into their stroke protocol, OLOL was able to support treatment times comparable to a Comprehensive Stroke Centre”.

It added: “The PTS enabled efficient and effective stroke management, leading to increased safety, decreased likelihood of errors, better decision-making, and improved communication among the medical team.”

The PTS helped to streamline stroke protocol at OLOL in two key ways — by removing reliance on often hard-to-find stretcher scales and simplifying the triage process.

The inspiration for the PTS was first sparked when former NHS Lanarkshire Emergency Department nurse Gillian Taylor became frustrated with traditional, unwieldy approaches to weighing Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients such as a hoist scale or bed scale.

Gillian realised that if a patient was weighed as they were transferred to a bed using a transfer board, they could be weighed quickly without unnecessary, problematic delay or discomfort.

Developed in close collaboration with InnoScot Health, NHS Lanarkshire, and leading manufacturer of medical weighing scales Marsden, the scale combines a standard patient transfer board with a class III approved weighing scale, enabling medication and treatment to be administered quickly and with confidence for dangerous conditions like stroke and sepsis while preserving patient dignity.

InnoScot Health worked closely with Gillian to evaluate the initial product, protect its intellectual property (IP), secure funding, develop the prototype, and test in more than 30 hospitals, with multi-disciplinary teams using the product and providing feedback. This provided guidance for the final design and ultimately allowed the PTS to be brought to market.

Head of Innovation Commercialisation at InnoScot Health, Gillian Henderson said: “We believe that the award-winning PTS is an exemplar of frontline health professionals identifying new, more efficient ways of improving patient care. The fresh data from Louisiana on the ability of the PTS to hasten stroke treatment only serves to underline that.

“By accelerating the speed at which medications can be administered, the PTS offers significant benefit in the treatment of many time-critical conditions which a standing weight measurement cannot achieve.

“Through the fantastic idea of Gillian Taylor and the collaborative process which followed, the PTS was developed into a viable commercial product which is now in use in hospital settings around the world.

“We are immensely proud of our role in helping to realise its vast benefits.”

Gillian Taylor said: “The Patient Transfer Scale makes transfers from trolley to bed faster and easier, the measurement of weight more efficient, and with both patient and staff safety improved. I am proud to say that it helps save lives.”