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From: Anne Hudson
Date: 15 Jul 2006
Time: 01:52:32 -0400
Remote Name: 209.181.51.172
SEIU's Lift Team Talking Points were drafted by Bill Borwegen, SEIU National Health and Safety Director, who welcomes your comments and suggestions at BorwegeB@seiu.org. Lift Teams that use Mechanical Lifting and Transfer devices Talking Points/ Examples of Successful Programs 1) Health care members work in a wide variety of occupations in jobs that are physically demanding and/or repetitive in nature and which frequently lead to preventable musculoskeletal disorders. Patient lifting, transfers and repositionings cause most of these injuries. 2) According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nurse’s aides suffer more back, neck, and shoulder injuries from patient lifting as a percent of their overall injuries than any other occupation. Injury rates for other health care workers involved in patient lifting and transfers are not far behind. 3) Employee turnover and absenteeism among healthcare workers due to patient lifting injuries compromises the quality of, and continuity of patient care. 4) Studies demonstrate that patient care is improved as patients actually prefer mechanical lifting, transfer and repositioning devices because it makes them feel more secure, and patient skin tears are reduced, a potentially life threatening condition. 5) The health care industry is where the solutions to these problems are the most clear cut, well known, well documented, and have been proven to be the most successful in preventing injuries and saving money. Depending on the particular study reviewed, the implementation of programs that reduce the manual lifting of patients have resulted in drops in back injury rates from 25% to 94%, and reductions of lost workdays due to such injuries from 50% to 88%. Savings of up to $10 in workers compensation premiums for every dollar invested in lifting, transfer and repositioning devices has resulted. There are a number of case studies on federal OSHA’s website at www.osha.gov. 6) In one NIOSH funded study completed in 1999 entitled, “Long-Term Effectiveness of ‘Zero-Lift Programs’ in Seven Nursing Homes and One Hospital,” the two key elements identified as necessary for a successful back injury reduction program were identified as management commitment and worker participation. Important aspects of worker participation include involving workers in hazard identification (identifying the most stressful tasks), control evaluation (evaluation of solutions to problems, including patient transferring procedures and devices), selection of controls (selecting the most effective procedures and devices), control implementation (implementing the safety program), injury investigation, and developing an equal partnership (make employees take ownership of the program as much as possible). Zero-lift programs were implemented by replacing manual lifting and transferring of patients, with modern, battery operated, portable hoists and other patient transfer assistive devices. Joint labor management committees with equal representation from management and employees selected the equipment and implemented the “zero-lift programs.” Injury statistics were collected during pre (average of 37 months) and post (average of 51 months) intervention. The number of injuries from patient transfers decreased by an average of 62%, lost workdays decreased by an average of 86%, restricted workdays decreased by an average of 64%, and workers compensation costs were cut by 84%. The program produced additional benefits including improvements in patient comfort and safety during transfers, and nursing personnel reported that they were less tired at the end of their shifts. More pregnant and older workers were able to perform their regular duties and stay on the job longer. One nursing home reported that employee turnover dropped from 150% a year to 40%, and that the policy of no manual lifting resulted in fewer skin tears and bruises among residents. 7) In September 2003, in their joint labor management partnership newsletter, Kaiser Permanente reported averaging a 46 percent reduction in lifting injuries for those medical centers with lift teams. Since their first month of service in December 2002, their San Diego Medical Center’s Lift Teams nearly doubled their average number of lifts to nearly 30 per day. "It's been great for me, because I know I am helping my fellow employees avoid injuries each day," said Lift Tech Alex Harland.” Kaiser Permanente Department Administrator Freci Portugal, R.N., who works with the San Diego Lift Teams, said, "We have made great progress in a short period of time, mainly because we are working in Partnership to continuously improve our service throughout the hospital." Lift Tech Tim Wright said, "We've had a lot of ideas to make the program better, and we have implemented those ideas together." "This is a team effort, and the team consists of the Lift Techs and the staff that is supporting the patient," said Lift Tech Sierra McGinley. "The staff tells us what the patient can and cannot do, and we take it from there." She said the secrets to the success of the Lift Teams are "knowing the correct lifting technique, knowing your lifting partner and knowing the proper way to use lift equipment. And we've found that together, we can do almost anything!"