Exploring the Relationship between Obesity, Patient Safety, and Caregiver Injury

Patient mobility is an important part of health care in any clinical environment; however, the tasks involved with this activity hold certain risks to caregivers and the failure to provide solutions to reduce them also pose further risks to patients. Subsequently, working in health care has become one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States. Obese patients are at a higher risk for certain common and predictable complications simply because of their body weight and size, therefore their care needs to encompass all areas of patient safety. A holistic approach to safe management of the obese patient should include preventing caregiver injury and promoting patient safety by integrating tools and resources into preplanning for expected and unexpected events when performing handling and movement tasks.

Gallagher SM

Keywords: patient mobility, patient handling, obesity, safety