Reality of Safe Patient Handling Policies and Programs in Hospitals Across the United States

Safe patient handling and mobility (SPHM) equipment has continued to be purchased with inconsistent compliance on the part of healthcare facilities. Face-to-face interviews about SPHM equipment and the perceived difficulties with SPHM tasks and SPHM policies were completed during this study which included 1,328 nurses across 49 hospitals. Additional data about injury rates, incurred costs, and lost and restricted workdays were obtained from company records. There were 5 major findings from the study: (1) Repositioning of the patient was by far the riskiest task performed; (2) nurses suffer the most injuries in hospitals; (3) the average cost of a reported injury is about $22,100 with an average of 22 lost or restricted days and was independent of hospital size; (4) medical/surgical units have the most injuries; and (5) few nurses (~2%) actually had any knowledge of the safe patient handling policy and procedures in their facility. Taken altogether, there appears to be strong levels of inconsistency in the way many hospitals implement their SPHM policies and procedures that are designed to ensure proper usage of the SPHM equipment they purchased. The SPHM program needs to address this issue of compliance to be successful and concentrate efforts on repositioning handling activities. Hospitals should recognize the added risk to nurses and put additional focus on protecting them as well as the other caregivers.

Sampath SL, Wilson K, Davis K, Kotowski S

Keywords: safe patient handling, policies and procedures, compliance, knowledge, equipment use