Delivering to Southeast

Dolphin FIS Therapy Surfaces in the Southeast

A Dolphin FIS system is mains-powered equipment. In most of the country that is a footnote. From Virginia around to Mississippi, and above all on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, it is the thing worth talking about first, because between the first of June and the end of November a power failure here is a forecast rather than an accident. Families in this region are the only ones who routinely ask us about the outage before they ask about the surface, and they are right to.

The honest answer has a number in it and a limit. Joerns states that the rechargeable battery back-up supplies the control unit for approximately twelve hours if the system is disconnected or the power fails, and that it recharges once power returns. Twelve hours covers a squall line, a transformer, a night. It does not cover four days after a landfall, and no one should plan as though it does. So the delivery conversation here includes what happens on hour thirteen, and it happens before the truck is booked rather than while the storm is named. Dolphin FIS and Fluid Immersion Simulation are registered trademarks of Joerns Healthcare LLC; we are an authorized dealer and we are not Joerns.

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Storm season shapes the schedule

Coming home from

A coastal acute-care hospital inside an evacuation zone

Hospitals in surge zones have their own storm plans and may discharge or transfer ahead of a forecast. A home setup planned for Thursday can become a home setup needed on Tuesday.
A private home in a county under a hurricane or tropical storm watch

Freight carriers stop accepting shipments into areas under warning before the weather arrives, so the deliverable window closes earlier than the weather window does.
A skilled nursing or assisted living community

This region runs a very large long-term-care sector, and facility generator and evacuation plans determine both where a surface is delivered and where it may have to follow a resident.
A hospice or home hospice setting

The goal is comfort on a short timeline, and an evacuation order does not pause that. The power plan and the transport plan get made together.
A rural hospital in the inland Southeast

Across the Delta, the Black Belt and Appalachian Kentucky and Tennessee, the nearest acute hospital can be a long drive, and the address at the end of it is often a long way off the interstate.

Going home to Southeast

Two things move the schedule here that do not move it elsewhere. The first is the carrier embargo: once a county is under a hurricane warning, freight into it stops being accepted, and it stops being accepted well before conditions deteriorate. The practical effect is that the last useful delivery day is earlier than the forecast suggests. If a discharge is being planned during an active watch, tell us, because the right answer is sometimes to move the delivery forward rather than to hold the date. The second is that a patient may be evacuated mid-rental. A therapy surface is not a piece of furniture that waits at an address; it belongs to a person who may be at a relative’s house two states away by the weekend.

Neither of those is a reason to avoid planning, and neither is a reason for us to be vague. What we will tell you is the mechanism: what gets confirmed before a system ships, who has to be present to receive it, what happens if a lane closes, and what the options are if the person the surface was ordered for has moved. What we will not do is put a delivery clock on a page in a region where the weather rewrites schedules for six months of the year. Ask us for the current picture on your lane and we will give it to you straight, including when the honest answer is to wait until the storm has passed.

Homes here, and what fits in them

Housing here is mostly single-storey and slab-built, which is the easiest delivery geometry in the country: a level entry, wide interior doors in newer construction, and a room that can usually take a hospital frame with working space on both sides. Florida in particular has a very large stock of single-level homes and manufactured homes built for exactly this stage of life, in a state with one of the largest older populations in the country. The friction is at the far ends of the region rather than the middle — raised piling homes on the barrier islands with a long exterior stair, and older homes in the inland South on pier-and-beam foundations with a narrow front step.

Climate is the part people underestimate, and it is worth being precise instead of alarming. Joerns states the system’s operating conditions as an ambient 50 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit at 30 to 75 percent relative humidity, non-condensing. In an air-conditioned Gulf-coast bedroom, that is an unremarkable specification. In a house that has lost power in August, with the windows open and the humidity where it sits here in the afternoon, the room is outside the manufacturer’s stated operating range for reasons that have nothing to do with the equipment. That is one more argument for having the outage conversation in advance, and for the room chosen being the one that stays coolest and driest rather than the one that is simply nearest the bathroom.

Good to know in Southeast

Approximately twelve hours, and no further: Joerns states that the battery back-up powers the control unit for approximately twelve hours in the event of a power failure or disconnection, and recharges once mains power is restored. It is designed to carry a gap, including during transport. It is not a hurricane plan, and we will not let anyone here leave thinking it is.
Two models carry a bottom-out safety cell, and only two: Joerns describes a foam safety cell on Low Profile models and an air-filled safety cell on V-Matt step-deck models, both as protection against bottoming out during a power failure that exceeds battery life. That is a genuinely relevant distinction in this region and nowhere else. It is not a feature of the standard ten-inch mattress and we will not describe it as one.
Lanes close before the weather arrives: Carriers embargo freight into counties under a hurricane warning ahead of landfall, and reopen in stages afterwards depending on port, terminal and road condition. A delivery date inside an active watch is a date worth revisiting with us rather than assuming.
A rental can be evacuated too: If the person a system was delivered for is moved out of the area, tell us where they have gone. The equipment does not have to sit at an empty address for the rest of the rental period, and pretending that never happens would be useless to the families it happens to.

Communities we deliver to

Miami–Fort Lauderdale and the Gold Coast · Tampa Bay and Sarasota · Orlando and Central Florida · Jacksonville · The Florida Panhandle · Atlanta and north Georgia · Savannah and the Georgia coast · Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry · Columbia and the Upstate · Charlotte and the Piedmont Triad · The Research Triangle · Coastal North Carolina and the Outer Banks · Hampton Roads and Richmond · Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville · Louisville and Lexington · Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile · Jackson and the Mississippi Delta · The Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast

Most requested in Southeast

Low-Profile Dolphin FIS System

The only configuration Joerns describes as carrying a foam safety cell to protect against bottoming out during a power failure that outlasts the battery. In a region that plans for multi-day outages, that is a specification worth asking about by name.

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Standard Dolphin FIS Mattress

The most common request on single-storey slab homes here, where the bedroom takes a standard 35-inch homecare deck and the delivery is a level entry through a front door.

$X,XXX–$Y,YYY/mo

Wide 42-Inch Dolphin FIS Mattress

Seven inches wider across at the same 500 lb rating. Southeastern bedrooms are generally large enough to take a wider frame with carer access on both sides, which is often not true further north.

$X,XXX–$Y,YYY/mo

Extra-Wide Bariatric Dolphin FIS Mattress

The 48-inch surface, rated to 1,000 lb on the mattress — the frame beneath it has its own manufacturer’s load limit and has to be matched. Long-term-care operators across this region are the most frequent buyers of this configuration.

$X,XXX–$Y,YYY/mo

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Discharge coming up

Coming home from hospital in the next day or two?

Send us a note with the discharge date and the surface the care team has recommended, whether the patient is leaving a hospital, a rehabilitation facility, a skilled nursing facility or hospice care. What can arrive in time depends on stock, the freight lane and the hour you call, so the earlier the better.

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Nearby areas we deliver to

Northeast & Mid-Atlantic Texas & South Central Midwest & Great Lakes All areas →

Equipment rentals in Southeast: questions

What happens to the surface if we lose power during a hurricane?

Joerns states that the rechargeable battery back-up supplies the control unit for approximately twelve hours when the system is disconnected or the power fails, and that it recharges once power is restored. Twelve hours covers a night or a short outage. It does not cover a multi-day outage after a landfall, and you should plan on that basis with the care team — what the alternative surface or the alternative location is, and who decides. We would rather say that plainly than let anyone assume otherwise.

Is there a model that is better if the power stays off longer than the battery lasts?

Joerns describes a foam safety cell on Low Profile models and an air-filled safety cell on V-Matt step-deck models, in both cases as protection against bottoming out during a power failure that exceeds battery life. It is a model-specific feature, not a general Dolphin feature, and it is not on the standard ten-inch mattress. Whether it is the right configuration for a particular person is a question for the wound-care nurse or clinician, not for us.

Can you still deliver if a storm is coming?

Up to a point, and the point comes earlier than people expect. Carriers stop accepting freight into areas under a hurricane warning before conditions deteriorate, and reopen in stages afterwards. If your discharge date falls inside an active watch, contact us rather than assume — sometimes the right move is to bring the delivery forward, and sometimes the honest answer is that the lane is closed and we tell you when it reopens.

We may have to evacuate. Does the rental just sit at the house?

It does not have to. Tell us where the person has gone. A therapy surface belongs to a patient, not to an address, and an evacuation mid-rental is a normal event in this region rather than an edge case. What we can do depends on where they are and for how long, so the conversation is worth having as soon as you know.

Our house gets very humid in summer. Is that a problem for the equipment?

Joerns states operating conditions of 50 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit and 30 to 75 percent relative humidity, non-condensing. An air-conditioned room in this region sits comfortably inside that. A house with the power off and the windows open in August may not, which is one more reason the outage plan matters. When you are choosing which room the bed goes in, the coolest and driest one is worth preferring over the most convenient one.

Book a rental delivered to Southeast

Tell us the address, the date and what the care team recommended. We confirm stock, the monthly rate and a delivery window by phone.

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