Hospital designs for safe patient handling
230 ceiling lifts installed in rooms
When Peace Health opens its new hospital in Eugene, OR, it will have the latest and greatest technology, private rooms, and attractive décor. But there's one more attribute Peace Health is pitching, especially to nurses: The new hospital will be a low-lift facility.
With an expanded number of beds, the hospital will need to recruit more nurses. And offering a solid patient handling program is a strong recruitment and retention tool, says Lisa Rodriguez, RN, COHN, HEM, Peace Health Oregon Region safety coordinator.
The new hospital will have tracks for ceiling lifts in most patient rooms and will supplement those with sit-to-stand lifts and repositioning devices, she says.
"We'll have the state of the art as we move to the new facility," says Rodriguez. "We need to get on the cutting edge with our work processes as well as our environment."
Research demonstrates that ceiling lifts are the best at reducing stresses on caregivers' backs, says Tom Waters, PhD, research safety engineer in the NIOSH Division of Applied Research and Technology in Cincinnati.
"Ceiling lifts require much less force to push and pull patients. Floor lifts require that you wheel the person around [to maneuver to a chair or toilet]," he says.
With easily accessible lifts, Peace Health may even be able to attract nurses with back injuries who are unable to work at facilities that still rely on manual lifting, says Rodriguez. "We will see that our physical requirements to be a caregiver are probably different in the new facility," she says.
It has been a long road to arrive at this new, comprehensive safe lifting program. Lift programs aren't transformed overnight, and hospitals must meet the challenge of sustaining the improvements.
Peace Health installed its first ceiling lifts in 1999, starting with the Intensive Care Unit and expanding to neurology. For a while, patient handling injuries in those areas actually dropped to zero. But the program had some fatal flaws, says Rodriguez.
Each department was responsible for replacing the slings, training staff and maintaining the equipment but they didn't receive a specific budget for those items. Gradually, the slings disappeared; sometimes they wouldn't come back from the laundry to the targeted unit. The staff didn't feel comfortable with the lifts and didn't have regular training.
Patient handling injuries began to rise again. "We did not have a sustainable program," says Rodriguez.
Those were valuable lessons learned. About three years ago, Rodriguez began trying to resurrect the safe patient handling program even without a designated budget. She used some money from an Oregon program that provides funds to help injured employees return to work after a musculoskeletal injury and purchased some inexpensive lateral transfer devices, such as Slipp sheets.
Even with those modest steps, the injury rates declined for two years in a row.
As the two-hospital system began plans for a new facility, Rodriguez and her colleagues wanted patient handling to be considered in the design. They found a good reception from the chief product planner who is a former nurse.
"The timing was right and the passion was there to see how we could make it happen," says Rodriguez.
But they also had to win support from the hospital administration. About 80% of the hospital's patients are at least partially dependent, she says. Some units need specialized slings and training, such as orthopedics. Rodriguez developed a business plan showing the cost savings from injury prevention with the lifts. She touted patient safety and comfort, including a lower likelihood of skin tears in frail elderly patients.
But the clincher was video vignettes of injured employees that she showed to the executive team and governing board. "Sometimes just being able to justify it monetarily is not all that you need," she says. "They talked about how they were injured handling patients."
Rodriguez also worked with physical therapy to gain their support and emphasize the advantages to patients. "Sit-to-stand lifts actually enhance therapeutic movement," she says. They make it easier for patients to move from the bed to the chair and encourage mobilization, she says.
As the new hospital prepared to open, all caregiving employees received an hour-long training in the new patient handling equipment. The education program is now standardized. Sling purchase also is centralized with materials management.
Because of concerns about pushing and pulling beds, stretchers and wheelchairs, carpeting was taken out of the hospital design in high-traffic areas. Instead, there will be laminate flooring.
Before purchasing any carpet, Peace Health tested it with stretchers and beds to make sure it wouldn't require undue force. And the hospital also purchased powered beds and stretchers to use with the bariatric program.
There will be about 230 ceiling lifts in the new building. Rodriguez continues to work with the operating room and emergency department to implement safe patient handling devices.
Staff will complete a mobility assessment on every patient, which will be linked with a patient fall prevention program.
"We know all the pieces we have to have to make it sustainable," says Rodriguez.
When Peace Health opens its new hospital in Eugene, OR, it will have the latest and greatest technology, private rooms, and attractive décor.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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