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For one health system, the path to being a "Best Place to Work" began with small steps. It started with a focus on the well-being of employees as well as the outcomes of patients. And after years of work, while garnering accolades for its wellness program and other benefits, it yielded a substantial savings in medical costs and workers' compensation claims.
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Health care remains in the spotlight of an energized U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as the agency explores new regulations related to infectious diseases and requirements for injury and illness prevention programs.
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For emergency room nurse Rita Anderson, RN, CEN, the assault was as sudden and unpredictable as a stroke of lightning.
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For many years, "body mechanics" was the mantra of physical therapy. Position yourself correctly as you lift and you can avoid injury, the physical therapists said.
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Safe patient handling moved to the national stage for the first time recently as a U.S. Senate subcommittee held a hearing on a bill that would create new injury prevention requirements.
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The Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2009 includes the following language requiring health care employers to purchase equipment for patient handling:
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The unprotected exposure of a respiratory therapist who later developed bacterial meningitis triggered the first citations under California's new Aerosol Transmissible Disease Standard with fines of $101,485, including two "willful" violations, the strongest possible penalty, against Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, CA. The medical center has appealed the citations, but did not reply to a request for comment as this story was being filed.
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"Two dead in Tennessee Hospital Shooting" New York Times, April 19, 2010
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A ream of statistics and studies may prove the benefits of safe patient handling. But at St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam, NY, equally compelling was the story of one patient a 450-pound woman who could not get out of the ambulance.
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Thanks to safer devices, health care workers are sustaining many fewer needlesticks than they did a decade ago. But hospitals have yet to face up to the challenge of one unsafe zone: The operating room.
