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In a lift-team hospital, nurses do practically no intense
patient handling. When someone must be transferred from
wheelchair to bed or helped from bed to bathroom, a
lift team is called. The lifters don't have to be strapping
men, nor must they come from a medical background. But
they are specifically trained to move people, and they
have the proper hardware at their disposal.
Tri-City Medical Center of Oceanside, Calif., is one
hospital that has opted for lift teams. It started with
a grant that covered the purchase of $160,000 worth
of equipment and the hiring of one two-person lift team,
which worked an eight-hour shift. Compared to the previous
year, reported injuries dropped from 22 to six, days
lost from 722 to zero and workers' comp costs from $224,000
to $14,000.
The results were so good that in July, Tri-City went
24/7 with its lift-team program. The expenditure for
the new personnel was $180,000. That's no small change,
but Liberty Mutual, Tri-State's insurer, estimated first-year
savings of $234,000 in claims. No additional equipment
had to be purchased. After an awkward transition, morale
among nurses is said to be higher than ever.
"These guys are spoiled," said Rudy Gastelum,
ANP, RN, Tri-City's employee health nurse, about the
lift teams. "The nurses cook them lunch, throw
parties for them. The patients all know them by name."
But will hospitals voluntarily adopt these strategies,
even with positive cost-benefit evidence? Hudson, who
is working with Charney on a book about preventable
back injuries to health care workers, doesn't think
so. She believes it will happen only when industry-specific
legislation prohibits manual lifts.
"Without outside legislation, it will not happen,"
Hudson said. "But when the first state passes such
legislation, others will soon follow, just as it happened
with needlestick legislation in California. We will
have zero-lift legislation in this country."
Contact Phil Barber at barzell@napanet.net
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