John Schurke, environmental access specialist at Cox Home Support, and Mandy Young, clinical therapist educator in Educational Services, practice with one of the ceiling-mounted patient lifts that will be used during training. As part of the safe patient handling initiative, a number of ceiling lifts have been installed in patient rooms throughout Cox South and additional portable lifts that can help staff members move patients are now available. Home Support has long provided the devices for home use and leaders say having more lifts available in the hospital will reduce injuries for staff and be more comfortable for patients.
If there’s any doubt about how physically demanding providing care at the bedside can be, the national statistics make it clear: health care workers suffer more overexertion injuries than any other type of worker and they have, on average, 30 percent more lost work days due to injury than the general working population.
The biggest culprit leading to those injuries? Moving and transferring patients. Between assisting non-ambulatory patients and repositioning patients in their beds, a typical health care worker may lift a total of 1.8 tons during the course of an 8-hour shift. It’s a reality that has led CoxHealth to launch a safe patient handling initiative that kicks off this month, with education and the addition of several devices that will help make moving patients safer.
Norma Curry, director of Nursing, says the initiative is about changing the culture of how caregivers handle patients. The goal is to move away from manual lifting and toward the use of devices that are safer and more comfortable for both staff and patients.
“Current practice involves taking multiple staff members to the bedside to move or transfer a patient,” Curry says. “Too frequently, our staff members are being injured.”
Those injuries not only affect the individual staff members, they cost the organization in a number of ways, including time lost when employees must be off from work and the cost of providing medical care for injured employees. Nationally, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is recommending that hospitals minimize manual lifting of patients and eliminate lifting altogether where possible. Nine states have passed legislation mandating safe patient handling programs and Missouri is expected to follow later this year.
To make the situation safer for staff and patients, CoxHealth has added a number of ceiling-mounted lifts, mobile devices and slide sheets that will help move patients. Education on the new devices will begin later this month.
“This approach is safer and more comfortable for patients,” Curry says. “It’s more comfortable to put them in one of these lifts or use slide sheets rather than lifting them under their arms.”
When the project is complete, every adult critical care bed will be equipped with a ceiling lift and nursing units will have a minimum of one room with a lift installed. Some units, such as the eighth floor, will have more lifts based on the need.
Nurse Sandi Brown has also joined CoxHealth as safe patient handling coordinator, Brown has worked in nursing for 37 years and has an extensive rehabilitation background as well as experience working with caregivers on the importance of proper body mechanics, safe lifting and the best ways to move patients.
“When you look at the number of injuries we see, we simply have to change our practice habits,” Brown says. “About 12 percent of the nursing work force nationally is affected with back injuries, that’s high in an area with a shortage of nurses.”
Jolene Palmquist, director of work injury in Rehab, says many injuries caregivers experience are the result of repeated movements, rather than a single incident. That’s why it’s so important to shift the culture of how patients are moved daily with the addition of simple devices such as slide sheets that will reduce the effort needed to adjust patients in their beds.
Ultimately, leaders agree that the changes proposed in the initiative are simply the right thing to do, both for employees and for patients.
“We’ve invested in it with the idea of keeping patients and employees safe,” Palmquist says. “That will lead to staff and patient satisfaction. When people are looking at hospitals of choice, they’ll be glad to know that CoxHealth has prioritized the safe handling of patients.”
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