Health-care workers let their equipment do heavy lifting

by William Hageman,

October 127,2006, Chicago Tribune

 

" Hospital patients, like everyone else in American, are getting heavier. Some of the methods previously used to move patients are proving to be less safe than once thought. And the health care workforce is aging.

   So it's no surprise that Bureau of Labor statistics show that six of the top 10 professions for on-the-job musculo-skeletal injuries are in the health-care field.

    What Edward ( Hospital) has done is to implement a $1 million program, dubbed "Get A Lift" that puts state-of-the-art patient lifts in every unit and in outpatient areas. More than 1,600 employees have been trained for the program which recently was rolled out for the entire hospital after being introduced in the cardiac units."