Potential Hazards
Employee exposure to work related MSDs from ergonomic stressors that have not been effectively identified and addressed in a safety and health program could be a potentially hazardous situation.
Many patients, especially nursing home residents, are totally dependent on staff members to provide activities of daily living, such as dressing, bathing, feeding, and toileting. Each of these activities involve multiple interactions with handling or transferring of patients and could result in employee injuries. Employee injuries lead to increased injury costs, higher turnover rates, increased sick and/or injured days, and staffing shortages.
Possible Solutions
OSHA recommends minimizing the manual lifting of patients in all cases. Employees should eliminate lifting whenever possible. Employers should also identify and address ergonomic stressors in their facility's safety and health plan.
Areas that should be addressed in a facility's safety and health program include:
- management leadership
- employee participation
- workplace analysis
- accident and record analysis
- hazard prevention and control
- medical management
- training
Let's take a closer look at each of these components.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
1-4. OSHA recommends minimizing the manual lifting of patients in _____ cases.
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