Safe Patient Handling and Mobility National Standards: A Ground Breaking Collaborative Effort

Harrington, Suzy

Sunday, April 14, 2013: 9:20 AM

Suzy Harrington, DNP, RN, MCHES
Department of Health, Safety, and Wellness, American Nurses Association, Silver Spring, MD

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to describe the collaborative effort undertaken to create the national, multidisciplinary, multi-setting standards, including the important role of nurses.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to apply information learned to enhance or implement safe patient handling efforts within their work environments.

This session will introduce and describe the collaborative process the American Nurses Association used to develop the multi-disciplinary and multi-setting Safe Patient Handling and Mobility National Standards. The goal of the standards is to establish a uniform, national foundation for programs to improve safety for patients and health care workers. The national standards are intended to be: multidisciplinary/intraprofessional across a variety of settings; realistic and attainable, but raising the bar; evidence-based and outcomes focused; ready to be incorporated into practices, policies, procedures, and regulation; disseminated with toolkits, model language, and other resources. This work groundbreaking and highly-anticipated; national standards for safe patient handling and mobility do not currently exist.

The process to develop the standards has truly been collaborative. Recognizing the important role of many disciplines in the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders, ANA convened a multi-disciplinary working group of subject matter experts. The working group included nurses, nursing assistants, ergonomists, economists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, equipment vendors, and other disciplines. The speaker will outline the challenges and successes experienced during this collaborative process, as well as lessons learned.

In additional to learning about the collaborative process, the session will also provide a brief overview of the eight standards. Topic areas include creating a culture of safety, guidelines for implementing and sustaining a program, incorporating prevention through design, managing technological resources, educating and training staff, and evaluating the program. This portion of the presentation will prepare the learner to begin applying the standards to enhance or implement safe patient handling efforts within their work environments.

See more of: CLINICAL SESSION: Collaborating to Develop Safe Work Environments
See more of: Oral Paper & Posters