The Incidence Of Musculoskeletal Injuries Among Nursing Staff

This assignment seeks to discuss three key themes in relation to Manual handling in the health care sector and will describe the literature which supports this. This topic has been chosen as the handling of patients plays an important role in Health and Social care. NHS, (2010, p. 3) states that 'Manual handling is a core competency for staff caring for patients'. This assignment will look at the importance of training that is required to ensure competent and safe use of equipment and the moving and handling of patients. Secondly this assignment will go on to describe how poor manual handling can affect Patients. There are many problems that can arise from incorrect manual handling, therefore this assignment will focus on the risk of

Flames of evolution in patient care have been fanned into a wholesome revolution in the nature of nursing care due to the ever changing healthcare needs and demands of patients. This has led to a paradigm shift from generalized patient care to a patient centered approach. The increase in interaction and individualized patient management has improved healthcare delivery. However, on the flipside, this has not come with new challenges. Healthcare providers are increasingly being exposed to new health hazards as new and sophisticated treatment approaches are developed. Injuries due to sharps are of significance in nursing practice. The International Healthcare Workers Safety Center (2010) reports that an average of 27.97 per 100 licensed beds sharps injuries occurred in 2007 while in 2008 17.2 per 100 licensed beds sharps injuries were recorded. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2010), 385,000 healthcare workers are injured due to sharps annually in the United States. This puts the healthcare personnel at risk of contracting infections such as Hepatitis C and B from contaminated objects. In regard to this concept, this paper will explore sharps safety at the clinical site with a view of using evidence based practice to creating awareness on the need for sharps safety in hospital settings.

The Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2015, or H.R. 4266, was reintroduced to congress in December of 2015 by Representative John Conyers and Senator Al Franken (Mitchell & Dawson, 2016). It is legislation that attempts to protect patients, nurses, nurse assistants, and other healthcare workers from injuries as a result of unsafe patient handling and mobilization. Congress found that in 2014, registered nurses were the sixth largest profession who were reporting musculoskeletal disorders and injuries as a result of their employment with 11,360 cases; the second highest profession in 2014 of reported musculoskeletal injuries was nursing assistants with 20,020 cases (H.R. 4266, 2015).

Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to inform my audience about the importance of safe nurse staffing that can help improve patient satisfaction, decrease patient complications, reduce nurse fatigue, improve nurse retention, decrease patient mortality, and reduce medical and medication error.

Mandating safe staffing levels for registered nurses in acute care settings has been an important topic of discussion for many years. As the demand for registered nurses continues to rise, so does the clinical demands on the nurses currently working. If there are no specific policies in place that mandate safe and appropriate nurse-to-patient ratios for all acute care facilities, registered nurses (RNs) may be required to take on even more patients than the already high numbers currently given to many of them. Inadequate RN staffing has the potential to cause increases in adverse patient events (American Nurses Association (ANA), The registered nurse safe staffing act, 2015) as well as an increase in nurse injury (Musick, Trotto, & Morrison,

My job as a certified nursing aide or CNA is to give direct care both medical and non-medical to patients. CNA’s can work at various healthcare facilities including hospitals, outpatient departments, long term facilities, clinics, and private home. CNA’s speed a huge time in taking and recording patient vitals, collecting specimens, and providing care for patient’s needs and wants. I myself work in a hospital. Some of the main equipment used to help me perform my job is gloves, masks, protective clothing (such as throw away gowns, hair nets, shoe covers), and face shields. These items are very important as a CNA and help protect you and the patient you are caring for. The largest piece of machinery or equipment I use is a lift, called a Hoyer

Statistical analysis showed that there is a high correlation between patient falls and the factors of nurse staffing that were addressed in this study. This shows that nurse staffing is significant in preventing patient falls and safety concerns in the hospital. The findings in data collected reinforce previous findings that greater staffing leads to fewer patient falls in the hospital. There were several correlations between the data collected and patient falls.

In accordance to this theme, the TCAB design team developed goals and changes that would show improved outcomes. One of these “high-leverage changes” (Rutherford et al, 2009) was preventing patient injuries from falls. Patient falls is one of the high occurrences in patient safety and injury, as well as the leading cause of death of patients 65 and older (Rutherford et al, 2009). By incorporating the TCAB initiative, the pilot hospitals average of patient falls was reduced by fifty-two percent (Rutherford et al., 2009). One of the ways that patient falls were reduced was by involving the personal care attendants (PCA) in making frequent rounds with patients and asking them if they were comfortable or if they needed anything. By involving the PCA’s in falls prevention, the study showed an average fall rate per one thousand patient days decreased from 6 to 4.5 (Stefancyk, 2009). One of the main themes between the studies is preventing patient injury during their hospital stay. In doing so, the ethical principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence have been addressed. A second intervention was also implemented in reducing injuries to the elderly client was placing a sensory cart on the unit and to be utilizing

When we think about medical safety and the risks we can prevent by proper technique and proper method of planning, we must discuss falls. Medical staff and researchers have discovered that falls are among the most common and reoccurring potentially serious safety problems in a medical environment (Byers & White, 2004). Falls greatly affect all types of health care including; acute care, long-term care, and nursing homes, becoming a top health priority internationally. Research has shown that more than one third of people above the age of 65 years fall every year, along with increasing numbers for those with chronic conditions affecting mobility and illness (Child, 2012). Allowing falls to occur at this scale is not only hindering the health care provided, but may cause mortality, serious or fatal injury, patient’s hospitalization period to increase, and a potential reduction of the quality of life of the patient (Child, 2012). An important concern with fall prevention is miscommunication in medical planning and improper use of equipment that decreases the chance of a fall. Falls can be reduced by educating medical staff and designing programs to establish techniques and prevention incorporating everyone that is involved in the patient’s care. By interacting with the medical staff and designing new and improved strategies, teams have recognized a significantly lower fall rate even within a time period

Safety is the most important factor for patients receiving care within healthcare organizations. Health care workers and team members most especially nurses play an important role in the protection of the patients ensuring prevention of falls and injuries that occur as a result from falls. Falls are known to be the second leading cause of death from unintentional injuries worldwide (Mitchell, 2017). Nurses have the onus to keep their patients safe from falls and associated injuries daily. Patients that have been hospitalized are at higher risk of falls. Nurses have various tasks to be done per shift and it is important to ensure time is made available to meet

"Effects Of A National Safe Patient Handling Program On Nursing Injury Incidence Rates." JONA: The Journal Of Nursing Administration, vol 44, no. 10, 2014, pp. 525-534. Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health),

What nurse in an inpatient setting has not experienced the horrible feeling of feeling completely responsible for a patient fall? No matter how many checks, alarms, or rating tools employed, falls are an inevitable part of every nurses’ practice. The Joint Commission recognizes that falls are among the highest reported sentinel events for hospitalized patients. When a patient falls, it costs the hospital an average of $14,000 and adds over 6 days to the patient’s stay. (Quigley & White, 2013) In the article “Missed Nursing Care, Staffing, and Patient Falls” by Kalisch, Tschannen and Lee (2012) the authors examine whether patient falls are more impacted by inappropriate staffing, or missed nursing care. Through the process of

The priority issue is safe staffing for nurses working in hospitals. This issue is a priority because many times nurses are overwhelmed with his or her patient load and cannot provide safe, effective patient care. With such a heavy emphasis on patient outcomes and patient satisfaction, more attention should be dedicated to this issue. Research studies consistently find that whenever there is high patient-nurse ratio it negatively impacts patient safety. A great number of studies have demonstrated that higher nurse staffing levels and richer skill mix have a strong association with reduced adverse patient outcomes (Twigg, Gelder, & Myers, 2015). This paper will discuss policy priority issue of safe staffing by identifying key points, providing supporting empirical evidence and recommendations to improve safe staffing, and the impact and importance safe staffing has on nursing.

Positive patient outcomes and ethical responsibilities are other areas of concern to discuss on the topic of patient safety. Health facilities with low staffing levels are at greater risk for negative patient outcomes. Along with falls mentioned earlier, urinary tract infections and pneumonia are other examples of adverse outcomes that could potentially be avoided with more nurses on

Nursing today, similar to many other aspects of life, is a supply and demand balance. Currently, we are experiencing a gap between the demand of patients’ needs and the supply of nursing care needed to meet those needs (Welton, 2007). For many years, legislators at the state and national level have attempted to resolve this gap by setting safe staffing standards (Hertel, 2012). The goal is to improve the delivery and quality of safe patient care (Welton, 2007).