Safe Patient Handling and Movement: An Evidence-Based Approach

Nurses and other healthcare professionals have some of the highest rates of work-related musculoskeletal injury. Despite recognition of these injury rates and the risks associated with manual handling of dependent persons, past efforts to reduce the injury rates have had minimal impact. 
Current efforts to improve the healthcare working environment have followed an evidenced based approach and have addressed the multi-factorial nature of such a complex issue within healthcare.
Such efforts have included establishing measurements of the negative biomechanical stressors, education and awareness, professional organization initiatives, government agency participation, improved technology available, provision of care guidelines, and evaluating the outcomes of applied efforts.  This session will provide an overview of the assorted programs’ efforts to improve the U.S. healthcare working environment related to patient handling and discuss the evidence that supports the strategies.