Physician Practice

Worker wellness: Safe lifting practices

Medical Environment Update, January 5, 2020

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Editor’s note: This series of stories will address the common types of injuries that strike healthcare workers and how you, as the safety professional, can help prevent them.

Despite healthcare workers’ inherent mission of healing others, they are still among the most commonly injured of any industry in the U.S.—a fact that has not escaped OSHA.

Unsurprisingly, most of those injuries are ergonomic injuries resulting from lifting heavy weights and improperly transferring loads from one place to another, usually while caring for patients.

According to OSHA’s latest statistics, the healthcare and social assistance industry reported more injury and illness cases than any other private industry sector—up to 582,800 cases, according to the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses conducted by the Bureau of Labor Safety. That’s 153,900 more cases than the next highest industry sector, manufacturing.

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Medical Environment Update.

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