Musculoskeletal Injury In Nursing

In the nursing profession, there is no shortage of musculoskeletal injuries in the workplace. Caring for individuals requires turning and lifting people of all ages and sizes. A workplace injury for a nurse is defined by Choi and Cramer (2016) as “any injury that is caused directly by performance of vital tasks in the process of care delivery to include patient/object handling.”

Rogers, Buckheit, and Ostendorf (2013) state that musculoskeletal injuries have been reported to make up about 43% of all nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses and that health care workers musculoskeletal injury rate was more than seven times the average national rate for all occupations. In 2009, registered nurses had the sixth highest rate of occupational musculoskeletal injuries (Rogers et al., 2013) The American Nurses Association (2011) conducted a Health and Safety Survey which showed that 62% of nurses reported that suffering a disabling musculoskeletal injury was among a top

concern while 56% of nurses reported having experienced musculoskeletal pain caused or made worse by work (Penprase, Pittiglio, & Vendittelli, 2016).
The top 3 causes of workplace injuries in nurses are over exertion, repetition, and an aging nurse population (Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA], 2010; Rogers et al., 2013) Rogers et al (2013) states that the type of musculoskeletal injuries suffered by registered nurses are the result of repeated manual patient handling activities such as transferring and repositioning patients, working in awkward postures, or pushing and pulling heavy objects.

Rogers et al (2013) also state a key factor in nursing workplace injures is that around the age of 40 nurses begin to lose strength and mobility making it more difficult to handle patients physically. There are also several negative outcomes that occur because of workplace injuries in nurses. For example, 12% of nurses leave the profession annually secondary to occupational back injuries, cost total around $7.4 billion annually and the average workdays lost for RN’s with musculoskeletal injuries is 5 days per episode (Rogers et al.,

2013)
The nursing profession recommends the creation and implementation of Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Programs to reduce cost associated with workplace injuries in nurses. This would entail the places where direct patient care occurs creating protocols that define for the staff what is approved methods for patient handling. Just as nurses follow policies in every other aspect of their daily care these policies would outline what should occur for tasks that require patient mobility such as bathing, ambulating, turning, transferring and toileting. These outlines would include use of provided equipment meant to make patient handling safer and less likely to result in nurse injuries (Choi and Cramer, 2016). The use of these SPHM ‘s to decrease the cost associated with workplace injuries should be addressed first and foremost because there has been substantial data to suggest that these programs are very successful in decreasing injury’s in the workplace as well as the associated cost.
Several facilities have adopted the use of SPHM’s with a reduction in their workplace injuries and hence a reduction in their cost associated with such injuries. Zwerdling (2015) states that the Department of Veteran Affairs Hospital’s saw a decrease from $1 million spent during a four-year period on workplace injuries to zero dollars spent last year at one of the VA’s hospitals. Zwerdling contributes the savings solely to the implementation of the SPHM’s and that no one got hurt badly enough to miss work. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health researchers implemented a SPHM for which the total cost of the intervention was $158,556 which in less than 3 years produced a savings totaling $55,000 per year in worker’s compensation costs alone (Aslam, Davis, Feldman and Martin, 2015). Finally, in the Northwest Texas Healthcare System the use of SPHM’s cut the number of workplace associated injuries for one year from 20 to 14 and the cost going from $27,402 per injury for each of the 20 injuries to a total of $24.245 for all 14 injuries (Branson, Davenport, & Hunter, 2010). SPHM’s are obviously successful cost cutters when it comes to nursing workplace injuries.
To conclude, RN’s have the sixth highest rate of occupational musculoskeletal injuries (Rogers et al., 2013) This is not only a problem for the RN’s but the facilities that employee these nurses as well. Workplace injuries in nurses are very costly to employers due to days missed, worker’s compensation claims, and nurses having to be replaced due to injury or leaving the profession because of injury (Rogers et al., 2013). The implementation of Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Programs has been seen to reduce the workplace injuries and therefor the cost associated with the injuries as well. This is evident by the money saved related to workplace injuries by the Department of Veteran Affairs Hospitals and the Northwest Texas Healthcare System. The conclusion can also be drawn from the study conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. With 12% of nurses leaving the profession annually secondary to occupational back injuries and the associated cost totaling $7.4 billion annually (Rogers et al., 2013) the healthcare system cannot afford to ignore the issue of workplace injuries in nurses.