What healthcare workers are saying...
Operating Room Hazard
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
97% of those working in the operating room have tripped on an operating table power cord.
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
23% of those working in the operating room have fallen because of power cords.
Patient Transport Hazard
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
Healthcare Worker Trip Falls
86% of those who transport patients have tripped or stumbled on power cords or cables while transporting a patient on an in-patient hospital bed.
Healthcare Worker Trip Falls
Operating Room Trip and Fall Occurrences
Healthcare Worker Trip Falls
15% of those who transport patients have fallen or incurred an injury because of the hospital bed power cords.
staff injury
INSTITUTE FOR HEALTHCARE IMPROVEMENT IMPROVEMENT AREA: WORKFORCE SAFETY
"Health care workforce safety is inextricably linked to patient safety, outcomes, and experience of care."
"Operating within a safe environment, physically and mentally, is crucial to individual preparedness for the manual and cognitive challenges characterizing health care workflows. Workforce safety recognizes the imperative to protect workforce members from physical harm so that they can deliver high-quality care."
"Health care organizations across all care settings can optimize workforce performance and safe, high-quality outcomes by:
-Ensuring work environments are free from physical hazards
-Shaping a culture of safety for both patients and the workforce"
Improvement area: Workforce safety. Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2023). https://www.ihi.org/improvement-areas/workforce-safety
Perioperative Staff Safety
“More attention must be placed on the safety of the perioperative nurse if we are to retain a healthy, productive workforce to provide the highest quality patient care.”
“Despite having worker safety policies in all hospital settings, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics [2] reports occupational injuries in registered nurses (RNs) resulting in time away from work, which increased by 42.2% from 2019 to 2020.”
“The operating room setting is important for research because there are significant workforce hazards”
Letvak S, Apple B, Jenkins M, Doss C, McCoy TP. At Risk Safety Behaviors of the Perioperative Nursing Team: A Direct Observational Study. Healthcare (Basel). 2023 Feb 27;11(5):698. doi: 10.3390/healthcare11050698. PMID: 36900703; PMCID: PMC10000593.
Transport Frequency
"According to University of Pennsylvania, in a single day, their transport team completes an average 575 trips moving patient’s around the campus."
Things you may not know about patient transport ... but should. Penn Medicine. (2021, May 1). https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/internal-newsletters/hupdate/2021/may/things-you-may-not-know-about-patient-transport-but-should
AORN Recommendations
Recommendation III: “Perioperative personnel should take precautions to mitigate the risk of occupational injuries associated with slips, trips and falls”
-“Injuries can impair ability to do his or her job, increase work-related compensation claims, diminish the ability of the employee to care for patients, cause lost workdays, and reduce productivity”
-“In 2011, NIOSH reported that the second most common cause of work-related injuries was slips, trips and falls”
-“In 2015 Gomaa et al reported rates of falls in 61 participating health care facilities. There were 382 work-related falls reported in the OR, which is the highest of all areas reporting”
Recommendation V: “Perioperative personnel should take precautions to mitigate the risk for injury associated with the use of electrical equipment”.
-V.b.2. “Cords should be secured in a safe manner with an electrical safety device”. “Safely securing cords helps prevent trips and falls.”
Conner, R., &Burlingame, B. (2016). Guidelines for perioperative practice: Edition 2016. AORN.