Affiliation:
1. Wake Forest School of Medicine
2. Martin Innovations
Abstract
Health care workers suffer from musculoskeletal disorders at a significantly higher rate than workers in other industries. Consequently, a growing demand for patient handling devices to reduce worker injury has evolved. This article reviews the literature regarding interventions designed to reduce injuries among health care workers. A PubMed search was conducted using the terms “occupational health [Mesh Terms] patient lifting.” Fourteen articles were identified that assessed interventions to improve worker safety. Of the 14 articles, 7 discussed technological interventions, 4 educational approaches, and 3 policy change. All three types of interventions were generally effective at improving worker safety, with the ideal intervention consisting of elements of all three types. Although adopting a new intervention may be expensive, the reduction in workers’ compensation costs associated with injured nurses can easily outweigh the costs of interventions.
Subject
Nursing (miscellaneous),Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Cited by
27 articles.
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