GOING ABOVE ‘ CALL , DON ’ T FALL ’: A SAFE PATIENT HANDLING AND MOBILITY INITIATIVE
Interview with Stephanie Wilson , OTR / L , CSPHP at NorthShore University HealthSystem
What is your background and role at NorthShore University HealthSystem ?
I have a Bachelor ’ s of Science in Occupational Therapy and a Master ’ s Degree in Public Policy and Administration . I came to NorthShore in 2005 as a staff level therapist . Over the years my roles at NorthShore have included Level I and II Staff Therapist , Resource Occupational Therapist and Therapy Supervisor . In my current position , I am Manager of Ergonomics and General Safety , a position located in the Environmental Health and Safety Department . I manage staff and patient safety programs which focus on safe patient handling and mobility , ergonomics and furniture procurement and planning .
How did you get involved in this role ?
My love for safe patient handling and mobility ( SPHM ) began as a student . My 2nd level II clinical was in a rehabilitation hospital that utilized ceiling lifts over every patient bed and all mat tables in the rehabilitation gym . In my first job as an occupational therapist , my department worked with nursing on the implantation of a safe patient handling and mobility program . When I joined North- Shore , my key projects for department growth consisted of training occupational therapy ( OT ) staff to move and assist patients safely . Due to some staff lacking patient movement education prior to hire , I developed a training plan for our OT staff and rehab aide team members .
After some time at NorthShore , the organization started to look at implementing a SPHM program . When the opportunity arose , my therapy director , knowing my love of SPHM , gave me the opportunity to be the therapy representative for the safe patient handling committee . Stepping into this committee allowed me to become involved corporately in the rolling out the program . I worked with our vendors on equipment and education roll outs and developed our SPHM policy . During this time , I worked part time as a therapy supervisor and part time as a safe patient handling coordinator . Once my current position was developed , I transitioned to my current role full time in 2014 .
What is safe patient handling and mobility ? What ’ s the goal ?
SPHM programs utilize equipment , training , policies , and procedures to ensure staff are able to care for and mobilize their patients safely . The goal is to decrease injuries to our staff members while performing high risk manual patient handling tasks and impact the culture of safety overall for an organization . Some of the manual tasks staff often complete with patients include boosting ( i . e ., moving a patient up towards the head of the bed after they ’ ve slid down ), lateral transfers , repositioning , toileting and mobilization . A comprehensive SPHM program can lead to not only a decrease in staff injuries , but it can also decrease falls and pressure injuries while increasing patient comfort during activity . It can allow the mobilization of patients earlier to decrease or prevent functional declines . Our goal is to provide a safe environment for all staff in all environments .
From the onset , our SPHM program has shown a significant decrease in staff injury . As with most organizations , we began by implementing the program on a pilot unit . The unit was chosen based on having the highest injury rate throughout our system . This pilot unit eliminated all patient handling injuries for 18 months . A decrease of this magnitude supported the continued roll out and adoption of a SPHM program corporately .
When developing metrics , like most organizations , we utilized workers ’ compensation costs , lost / restricted workdays , and the cost for alternative duty
5 Illinois Occupational Therapy Association | 2022 ISSUE 4