When I first read of nurses suffering from back
injuries, it was quite a shock that a hospital could have occupational hazards.
NPR’s Injured Nurses [1] made me
aware of this issue that what is a treatment haven for suffering patients is
dangerous for the nurses who serve there.
“There’s no
safe way to do it with body mechanics”. McKinney
stressed that the safest way to move patients is to use equipment, such as
motorized lifts that hang from the ceilings [2].
On Jan. 1, 2012, the
state of California put into effect the Hospital
Patient and Health Care Worker Injury Protection Act. The
bill requires the replacement of manual lifting and transfer of patients with
the appropriate use of powered lift and transfer devices.
According to Handbook
of Modern Hospital Safety by William Charney, safety committees and
employee training can be effective in prevent hazardous exposures and reducing
the incidences of occupational injuries, disabilities and diseases associated
with employment in health care.
According to The Leapfrog
Hospital Safety Grade website, it is a public service provided by The
Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety,
and transparency in the U.S. health system. Leapfrog should also rate a
hospital according to the workplace safety too. Workplace safety incidents are
required to be well recorded. This information should be easy to track. National Health Care Ratings Summit is
a good way to make the public aware
of their role in engaging with the ratings and weeding out hospitals that do
not make hospital safety a priority.
The hospital upper management too should track the
reduction of workplace injuries as a KPI (Key Process Indicator). With this
message, there will be a buy-in from everyone to make safety at work, a
priority. VA hospitals have reduced workplace injuries by 40% using technology
[3]
Patient- centered design principles like UT Southwestern's Clements University Hospital
in Dallas with double-paned glass in lieu of curtains to reduce infection risk
[4]. Anti-Microbial
screens too can reduce the risk of infections.
Manufacturing and Construction industry can be looked
at to see how they reduced the workplace injuries.
Facts About Hospital Worker Safety [5] shows why it
matters to create a culture of safety. There is a detailed analysis of the
hidden costs of health worker injuries. ‘good catch’ is a nice incentive to
foster safety culture.
OSHA has launched a program to protect nursing
employees [6]. With a detailed look in the hospital surrounding and information
gathered through the health worker interviews, OSHA should be able to come up
with recommendations to reduce workplace injuries. If OSHA succeeds in getting
the workplace injuries online, crowdsourcing can be used for data analysis to
come up with insights that can be used to solve the problem. For example,
Notevault’s Crowdsource Safety is an effective tool in assuring safety
compliance in the construction industry [7].
Just like Patient Safety Managers, there should be
dedicated Health Worker safety managers.
With
automation as much as possible, workplace safety awareness, healthcare worker
injury protection laws and hospital management support, it should be possible
to create a safer environment for employees and patients.
4. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/aging-growing-population-spurs-hospital-redesigns
7. http://www.notevault.com/safety
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