The health care industry continues to account for a disproportionate amount of back injuries. Health care providers involved with patient handling tasks have one of the highest incidence rates of back injuries of all professions in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) continually shows hospitals and nursing homes amongst the top five industries for work related back injuries. The BLS reported in 1992 that 41% of all lost time incidents attributed to health care were back injuries.1 A 1992 study by Garg and Owen estimated the back injury incidence rate of all U.S. nurses at 83 per 200,000 work-hours.2 In addition, Vasiliadou et al. in 1995 identified the act of repositioning a patient in bed and transferring them out of bed to account for 29% and 24% of the low back injuries respectively.3 Lifting and transferring patients were reported as the most common activity associated with these types of injuries. Study after study shows that nurses and other health care professionals are in a constant state of risk while manually transferring patients.
One study found approximately 12% of nurses have left or considered leaving their profession due to chronic back problems.4 Nursing assistants have a 30% turnover rate annually that is aggravated by this same problem. Not only is this one of the most prevalent types of injuries amongst health care workers, but is also the most costly. Even the most conservative reports suggest that the average lost time back injury will be between $8,000 and $10,000 and many set the cost at over $20,000 per low back injury. It is of little wonder why the workers compensation pay-out for just this industry exceeds $1 ½billion dollars. When one calculates the cost of hiring, training, overtime, loss of productivity and quality of care, the direct cost of $1½ billion can be multiplied by a factor of four to get the real picture of the impact these injuries are having on the cost of health care.
According to BLS data (1995), incidence rates for back related injuries from hospitals are 11.4 per 1000 employees and 25% involved lateral patient transfers confirming previously noted studies.5 Lateral transfers involve the movement of the patient from one flat surface, i.e. the bed, to another flat surface such as a cart, x-ray or surgical table. An upright transfer would involve moving the patient to a chair, toilet, shower, etc. The lateral transfer usually requires three to four employees to dead lift the patient by the use of a draw sheet. At any one time, half of the lift team is fully extended across the cart and bed to accommodate the lift. Thisawkward posture and extreme weight places the caregiver at risk.
