Safe Patient Handling and Mobility Plan for the COVID-19 Units at a Level 1 Trauma Center in Florida

With COVID-19 cases on the rise in many states, it is important for healthcare facilities to take action to protect their frontline staff from musculoskeletal injuries. Many of these staff are working alone in the COVID-19 rooms in an effort to limit exposure to others as well as preserve personal protective equipment (PPE). This can place them at a greater risk of injury. This article will review how a level 1 trauma center came together and created a plan to maximize the safety of their frontline staff who work in their designated COVID-19 units. This plan included placing patient lift equipment in every COVID-19 ICU room to ensure that equipment is utilized for the proning and turning of all patients regardless of their size. Hands-on education sessions were provided and short videos were created as a resource to all team members working on these units. The role of the injury prevention (IP) team is described in this article, as they continue to play an instrumental part to ensuring that patient lift equipment is accessible, available, and in good working condition as well as assisting with the more complex/bariatric patient handling tasks on the COVID-19 units.

Labreche M

Keywords: COVID-19, proning, lift team, injury prevention, safe patient handling, patient mobility, ICU