The Science of Ergonomics: Keeping Caregivers and Patients Safe (Podcast)

Workplace ergonomics in healthcare is key to helping prevent back injuries, shoulder injuries and other common problems.

“A big risk factor for nurses is that they are constantly moving patients,” says Kim Kalo, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC, OCN, a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Program Manager with Cleveland Clinic’s Environmental Health and Safety, and Program Manager of Mobility with Safe Patient Handling. “We are boosting patients up in bed, we’re laterally transferring patients, and we need to make sure we are doing it in a way that is safe for us and for the patient as well.”

In the most recent episode of Cleveland Clinic’s Nurse Essentials podcast, Kalo and Drew Schwartz, DC, a chiropractor with the Wellness and Preventive Medicine Department, share ideas on how caregivers can take care of their bodies while ensuring patient safety. They cover:

• Technologies to promote safe patient mobility, including portable lifts, ceiling lifts and friction reduction devices
• How to mitigate the risks associated with manual lifting
• Ergonomic advice for charting, using workstations on wheels and other tasks
• Training caregivers on how to use patient handling devices, where they are located and who will benefit from them
• Creating a culture of mobility and safe patient handling

Click the podcast player above to listen to the episode now, or read on for a short, edited excerpt. Check out more Nurse Essentials episodes at my.clevelandclinic.org/podcasts/nurse-essentials or wherever you get your podcasts.

Podcast excerpt

Podcast host Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC: We're very fortunate that we have these resources at Cleveland Clinic. Someone at another organization who doesn't necessarily have these resources and wants to … ask for more or different devices, what advice would you give them?

Calo: I think that's a great question. [I advise] listening to your caregivers, doing a routine risk assessment on your nursing unit, trying to look at your patient population, what are the best devices, consulting area experts that might be able to come in and help you with these kinds of questions. And leading by example as well.

So, showing the devices to your caregivers, showing data. Data always speaks volumes – if you can show different studies that this was used on this and then they had better outcomes. Honestly, when we show caregivers safe patient handling devices, they're excited about them. They like to use them. I don't think that you'll have issues in that. It's making sure that it's the culture of the unit, that's it's just something that they do. It's kind of muscle memory – OK, we're going to boost this patient, we're going to grab this device to help us make it easier. I think that goes a long way.

Dr. Schwartz: I think that the education piece is the vast majority of the problem. If we can't have that education piece within an organization or a culture, you're not going to have a lot of ergonomic awareness. You just don't know what you don't know.

Here at the Cleveland Clinic, people can reach out to our team, and we have the services. This is what we do. … And if you're not within the Cleveland Clinic, take a look at reaching out to your PT Department. They probably have a great resource for biomechanics. Or chiropractors. Same thing. We want to take a look at who has biomechanics nailed down. They probably are doing some ergonomic training. Reach out to them.