Patient Handling With Equipment Versus Manual Handling - Maitri Hospital

1
One of the major causes of injuries caused to
patients is the repeated manual shifting,
lifting, transferring, and repositioning that
they have to encounter. While operations,
surgeries, and treatments require patients to
take a few days leave from work to get
appropriate rest, handling them inappropriately
can be a cause of concern. Considering this,
many healthcare organizations are coming up with
safe patient handling programs, which aims to
minimize injuries due to unnecessary movements
and falls.
Proper education and equipment that help
understand and use patient lifting appropriately
can significantly reduce exposure to patient
risks. The main focus is on using equipment
rather than people to perform lifts, movements,
and repositioning of patients such that they
encounter lower levels of stress. But, taking
care of this requires good management, and
possibly a team of appropriate managers and
supervisors. In addition, the non-managerial
employees who provide direct care to patients
should be well represented on the safe patient
handling committee in order to design and
implement a safe patient handling program and
sustain it into the future. Besides, high risks
should be addressed. Types of nursing units, the
equipment, the physical environment of the
patient care area all of this needs to
considered. Also, the characteristics of patient
population, like the level of patient mobility
and cognition, should also be considered. And,
methods should also be employed to control
hazards, like lifting, transferring, and
repositioning patients.
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• Manual lifting should be minimized, or if
  possible, eliminated and instead, specialized
  lifting equipment and transfer tools should be
  used. Appropriate lifting equipment should be
  selected in accordance with the hazard
  assessment, and the installation and maintenance
  should be done as per manufacturer
  recommendations. The best approach for this is
  through proper design of the work environment. In
  addition, there are various factors that need to
  be considered while selecting and using
  equipment-used movement of patients. These
  include their weight bearing capacity, upper
  body strength, lower body strength, physical
  characteristics, cognitive level, and other
  factors like presence of tubes, splints, IV, and
  HOF.
• There are a number of benefits associated with
  safe patient handling, apart from reducing the
  risks of injury. These include
• Decreased patient falls
• Reduces costs associated with injuries
• Improved nursing recruitment and retention
• Increased patient satisfaction and comfort
• More satisfying work environment
• Improved quality of care for patients
• Enhanced rehabilitation efforts
• Improved job satisfaction for workers
• Lesser fatigue and more energy at the end of work
  shift for workers
• Improved quality of life for workers outside of
  work
• Reduced use of sick leaves by employees and
  reduced compensation
• Fewer resources needed to replace injured staff
• However, there must be sufficient education and
  training given to each worker so that they
  understand the elements of safe patient handling
  programs, and how to
• participate. They should be taught appropriately
  to assess hazards, use appropriate patient
  lifting equipment, and review evidence-based
  practices for safe patient handling.
• While patient handling is done through machines
  these days, for effective treatment of patients,
  a physician is still the best choice. Maitri
  Hospitals general physician in Kota is who you
  can approach for all kinds of generic diseases
  and illnesses, along with certain unusual ones
  like dengue, chicken gunya, tuberculosis, and
  pneumonia.
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