Making the business case for safe patient handling

We found this Interesting video on the cost analysis of a safe patient handling program from the Risk Authority Stanford. This may be useful to some of you Manual Handling Co-ordinators and Work Health Safety officers out there if you are trying to build a business case for implementing changes in your facility. We see the situation time and time again that hospital budgets don’t seem to stretch to the last mile of getting patient handling systems right.  Those systems can range from slide sheets and proper training around their use to ceiling hoist systems that greatly reduce the chance of injury in situations where there is the high volume of patient transfers. 

One of the main points made in this video is that of the cost of staff turnover.The single biggest factor in nursing staff leaving the profession is injuries from bad patient handling practices. They put a number on the cost of recruiting and training a new member of staff as being around $60k for a nursing professional.  Lose 10 nursing staff a year and you quickly surpass expenditure made on safe patient handling programs.