Injury Prevention & Other Benefits of Safe Lifting

Healthcare institutions, according to most contemporary literature, benefit from the safe lifting and repositioning of patients in a number of ways. These include:

• Caregiver injury prevention
• Improved clinical outcomes for patients
• Greater patient protection, safety and comfort
• Workers’ compensation and related cost savings

In actual practice, whenever a healthcare institution commits to a safe lifting program or caregiver injury prevention program the benefits are proving to be far reaching.

Caregiver Injury Prevention

Injury to a trained caregiver can be disastrous, causing significant pain, suffering, and even loss of one’s professional career. Such injuries are particularly prone to occur during transfer tasks such as during toileting, bathing or moving the patient between bed and wheelchair, and often they involve unanticipated movements caused by events such as when the patient begins to slip or fall. Nurse managers are in an ideal position to assess the abilities of nurses and other caregivers and to encourage use of assistive devices and proper training as part of a conscious effort to avoid injuries. A suggested training regimen need not be extensive or complex, but by introducing training as a key component of caregiver injury prevention, many significant risk factors can be virtually eliminated. Typically, caregiver training covers proper equipment selection, operation and maintenance.

Improved Clinical Outcomes

Many patients experience clinical benefits as a result of being lifted periodically to a standing position and/or being repositioned on a regular basis. Typical clinical benefits include improvements in overall hygiene, increased comfort and safety, avoidance of falls, reduction in bruises and skin shearing, improved bowel/bladder functioning, a greater sense of personal dignity, and overall acceleration of rehabilitation results. Other benefits may include improved balance, strengthened pelvic musculature, decreased urinary tract infections and calculi formation, and maintenance of bone density.

Rehabilitation activities within the institutional setting can be facilitated using a selection of flexible function lifts, slings and vests. These activities may include static weight-bearing, ambulation, gait training or prompted voiding. Avoidance of contractures or venous stasis are potential benefits as well. Additionally, by facilitating the lifting process for the caregiver, the overall quality of patient care can be enhanced and the patient’s clinical outcome will often improve accordingly. These benefits are largely due to the caregiver being able to more easily perform toileting, skin treatment and rehabilitation tasks.

Patient Protection, Safety and Comfort

Manual lifting can have both positive and negative effects on the patient and the caregiver, and these are often underestimated or completely overlooked by caregivers and nursing managers. For some examples, significant injuries to the patient can result from caregiver actions such as over-stressing the patient’s arms or shoulders. Limited range of motion due to shoulder subluxation, arthritis, or old humeral head fractures can predispose the patient to pain and further injury. Skin tears or bruising can result from excessive grasping of the patient. Dropping of the patient can occur, with resulting head injuries, hip fractures, or other traumatic injuries. Even the fear of falling by itself is an unnecessary stressor that can adversely affect patient and caregiver alike.

Other adverse effects that can result from lack of adequate mechanical lifting assistance include pressures sores caused from too infrequent repositioning, or skin shear as a result of linen friction while being pulled rather than lifted up in bed. Loss of patient dignity can also result from awkward manual lifts. In brief, injuries or significant clinical regression can result from lack of proper lift and transfer equipment, sometimes even causing re-injury and/or requiring costly extension of the patient’s institutional stay.

Potential for Cost Savings

Proponents of safe lifting believe that caregiver injury prevention can help reduce workers’ compensation costs along with a host of indirect expenses such as overtime, recruitment, administrative and paperwork fees, plus numerous others. And, in actual practice, facilities where safe lifting programs have been implemented consistently demonstrate significant financial savings and a variety of performance improving results.

A free, web-based Annual Safe Patient Handling Cost Savings Calculator is now available to assist facility managers and safety team members in estimating cost savings based on industry averages. The Calculator can give users a better feel for anticipated spending levels as well as the potential savings that might accrue from implementing a safe lifting or injury prevention program. Such programs typically require investments in patient handling equipment and associated staff training to ensure safe operation and maximum caregiver participation. Also, the calculator results can be supplemented by formal ROI analyses.