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774 Safe Patient Handling Program
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St. Vincent's Medical Center: Bridgeport, Connecticut

When it comes to financing projects or equipment related to safe patient handling, St. Vincent's Medical Center has a "safety trumps all" attitude. The hospital fosters a "high reliability" culture, and two of its five high-level corporate goals relate to safety.

Image of poster encouraging employees to speak up about safety concerns
St. Vincent's encourages caregivers to speak up about safety.

All associates share St. Vincent's culture of safety. High reliability opened channels of communication and encouraged caregivers to speak up about proper lifting. Associates are taught that it is "not part of the job" to get hurt handling patients. Individual departments are proud of the changes they made to improve safety.

St. Vincent's has not always taken this approach to patient handling. Although the hospital launched a safe patient handling program in 2005, lifts were not being used because the program lacked local "super users" and accountability from management to follow the policy.

When the SmartMOVES program was reinvigorated in 2008, the hospital asked associates for their input on equipment and provided extensive hands-on training on its uses and benefits.

During the first year, patient handling injuries decreased 56 percent, and they continue to decrease: from 2012 to 2013, the hospital saw a 27 percent reduction. The success of the current program is also due to management commitment and transparency. Senior executives lead daily safety huddles, and "good catches" (i.e., reported near misses) are treated as opportunities to learn additional ways to improve safety.