Stretcher costs rise

The Stair Stretchers acclimated for alteration patients has gone high-tech and high-cost.

The boilerplate amount paid for stretchers jumped 20% over the accomplished year as added hospitals purchased costlier models that accept circuitous features, such as automatic drives or affinity with X-ray imaging devices, according to the Modern Healthcare/ECRI Institute Technology Amount Index. But one able aloft questions about whether the abstruse advances are account the price.

The basis looks at account and anniversary amount abstracts for about 30 accumulation and basic items purchased by hospitals and added healthcare providers, based on three-month rolling averages.

The boilerplate amount of a stretcher is $5,900, compared with $4,900 at this time endure year, said Kevin Lee, an analyst in ECRI's healthcare technology advising service.

The amount of a archetypal stretcher ranges from about $2,500 to $7,000. Stretchers with a automatic drive, which can advice hospital agents move stretchers accustomed bariatric patients and abate aback ache for caregivers, amount about $10,000. An X-ray-compatible stretcher is at atomic $6,000, Lee said. Manufacturers say these stretchers are advantageous because agents do not accept to move a accommodating to a abstracted apparent for an X-ray.

Motorized stretchers accept been on the bazaar aback 2005. Interest in those models, as able-bodied as the X-ray-compatible stretchers, is driving the boilerplate amount of all stretchers up, Lee said. The ECRI Institute is planning to appraise whether the automatic stretchers can, in fact, abate caregiver injuries.

Motorized drives are the ambiguous feature, said Kenneth Ross, ECRI's chief affairs administrator in the activated solutions group. It adds a lot of money and adds a lot of maintenance, and is not absolutely as simple to man as some of the vendors imply.
Experts say a growing citizenry of morbidly adipose patients has led hospitals to acquirement costlier stretchers, which accomplish it easier to carriage these patients. There are about 30 automatic stretchers in Fletcher Allen Health Care's agile of 200 stretchers, according to Whitney Taylor, administrator of purchasing, application and amount assay for the 419-bed hospital in Burlington, Vt. The new models usually accept about a 700-pound weight capacity.

Fletcher Allen purchases its stretchers on a sole-source arrangement with Stryker, based Kalamazoo, Mich., which is one of the two manufacturers that dominates the U.S. stretcher market. Hill-Rom, based in Batesville, Ind., is addition player.

We feel that these models are admired for both agents and accommodating assurance reasons, Taylor said in an e-mail.

Wheel Stretchers aswell appear with anxiety systems, which can active caregivers to anticipate accommodating avalanche and advice the caregivers abstain aback injuries from appropriation patients who accept fallen. Those models amount added than acceptable stretchers. Added high-cost models accept a fifth wheel, which can advice agents cross hospital hallways and corners.