Healthcare Workplace Safety Training Reaps Big Savings
Ergonomics and Back Injury Safety Program makes the healthcare workplace safer—lowers claims costs.
Santa Barbara, CA (PRWEB) September 15, 2004 -- Healthcare workers lead the
nation in work-related back injuries, with nearly 40 percent more injuries than
truckers, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Whether from repetitive
patient lifting and handling tasks or the result of a single traumatic incident,
such as a fall or breaking a patient’s fall, a compensable back injury in the
healthcare workplace can cost $100,000 or more, especially in
California.
Preventing these kinds of injuries with workplace safety
training is critical at a time when the nation’s obesity epidemic means more
than half of the U.S. population is overweight. Lifting 200- to 300-pound
patients can be a daily occurrence for healthcare workers.
After watching
significant chunks of revenue go to insurance premiums, reserves for injury
cases, and payments for medical care on existing claims, CFO of the Frank R.
Howard Memorial Hospital, in Willits, California, Carlton Jacobson, started to
look for ways to reduce the costs of claims, and the eventual reduction of
insurance premiums.
Liberty Mutual suggested a worker safety program,
BackSafe, delivered by Future Industrial Technologies
(FIT) where skilled medical practitioners and ergonomists provide workplace
safety training. Implementation of this program reduced loss rates from $377,000
to $12,800 in just three years.
Although FRH Memorial had an active
safety committee with a flexible budget for immediately providing abatements and
repairing or removing any safety hazards, their main problem was controlling how
healthcare workers physically interacted with their workplace environment on a
day-to-day basis.
Performing a heavy patient lift single-handed could
easily happen if a worker was in a rush and no help was immediately available.
Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSI) tended to crop up among office workers if
correct posture and safe equipment use were not re-enforced.
Despite
their in-house safety initiatives, Jacobson felt it would be beneficial to bring
in an outside safety training team. “An outside company provides an
authoritative sense of expertise, so employees are more likely to listen,” he
said.
FIT provided an extensive walk-through in all areas to identify
ergonomic risk factors and work tasks that presented a high injury potential.
Patient lifting was targeted as a high-risk area, and the hospital was advised
to purchase mechanical lifts to assist the staff with heavy patient
transfers.
“The mechanical lifts cost around $1,500 to $3,000 per
machine, but that is nothing compared to one $100K claim for a back injury,”
Jacobson said. Total equipment costs were around $50,000, still well under the
cost of one injured worker in California. The workplace safety program trained
the nurses in the proper use of the lifts and each worker attended “back safe”
training to learn, practice and re-enforce safe lifting techniques.
Future Industrial Technologies also provided a separate
Sitting Safe and office ergonomics training program for the office staff.
Employees were encouraged to “team up” and evaluate each other’s workstations on
a regular basis, and to keep a sharp eye out for risky behaviors or
postures.
“We started the FIT program in 2001, which was the year we had
at least three expensive claims open,” said Jacobson. “Costs went down every
year after that.”
As costs decreased and injury rates went down, the
hospital experienced growth in many areas. The number of employees increased
from 180 to 240 and staff turnover decreased. Employees expressed satisfaction
with their jobs and workplace.
Did this all help to lead to their
above-average evaluation among consumers? With injury rates going down, employee
job satisfaction on the rise and the hospital growing in home health and other
areas, Jacobson likes to think so.
In 2003, FRH Memorial decided to join
a small group of hospitals and become self-insured. This move in conjunction
with the ergonomics program continues to keep costs down and ensure a profit.
Now that his hospital is part of a larger group, everyone’s injury rates become
even more important. Losses can be pooled with the other hospitals and the
reserves can be pooled as well, but each hospital must be responsible for its
own claims.
“Many hospitals run on a slim bottom line and the decision to
put money out for training and equipment is a big one,” said Jacobson. “Nobody
can promise you that you will absolutely get results from this training program.
But in our situation, with premiums skyrocketing, we felt the risk was worth the
benefit and it paid off.”
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/9/prweb158342.htm