A family-owned, small business

Jamar Health Products created PATRAN^® slide sheets nearly 40 years ago. Starting with the original disposable slide sheet, the company now sells a variety of sizes and styles of single-patient, multiple-use slide sheets for safe patient handling and mobility.

In 1981, engineer James Scott learned of a well-known Midwest-based health system that was starting to see more larger-sized patients but was having trouble moving them from surface to surface. Nurses were using garbage bags to help with the task, but they experienced a number of problems. For instance, the garbage bags gave off static shocks and stretched and tore easily.

James put his engineering talents to work and came up with a product that met their needs. Although it’s called a slide sheet, the PATRAN design is actually a flat tube. At the time PATRAN (pronounced PAY-tran) debuted, it was used for lateral transfer. The name came from the words “patient transfer.”

James and his wife, Mary, created the company, Jamar Health Products.

In the 1980s, a few hospitals showed interest in protecting their employees who worked in their operating rooms from injuries incurred while moving patients. Fewer still showed interest in single-patient-use products.  As a result, PATRAN sales got off to a slow start. New customers usually came when caregivers left the prestigious health system and relocated to another hospital, bringing their knowledge of PATRAN slide sheets with them.

During the next couple of decades, caregivers started to use PATRAN slide sheets for boosting and in-bed repositioning, tasks they found were also causing injuries. Because PATRAN slides in all directions, the ways to use it began to grow.

Fast forward to the early 2000s when the Veterans Health Administration started to publish research showing that patient-handling injuries were rampant among U.S. health care workers. An annual SPHM conference was launched to educate the health care industry about ways to protect its workers. Jamar started exhibiting PATRAN at the conference and found an enthusiastic audience for our low-cost and versatile solution.

As health care facilities nationwide started buying PATRAN slide sheets, caregivers including nurses, physical and occupational therapists and SPHM coordinators, started getting creative. Jamar credits their ingenuity for coming up with many of the more than 25 ways to use PATRAN for SPHM tasks.

As the demand for PATRAN slide sheets grew, the Scott daughters, Stefanie and Shannon, got involved in the business. Soon, the company’s offerings expanded from the original blue 72x36-inch, slide sheet to a number of different colors, sizes and styles.

Stefanie and Shannon took over the business from their parents, making Jamar a women-owned small business. In 2013, Stefanie took the helm of the company as president. James remains involved in product development and training.

Jamar Health Products is located in Greendale, Wisconsin.