work . While we still review and report on these , we found these are truly lagging indicators . Using these indicators alone , we were unable to predict additional education needs or changes to our onboarding process . To address these needs and assess true program sustainability , we determined we needed to take a deeper look at our metrics .
When completing a facility assessment and a survey of current staff , we found the team was not comfortable utilizing the lifts in all patient situations . Although they had attended an education session as part of their onboarding , they were not comfortable utilizing that knowledge and putting it into action with real patients . We needed to change our current process to ensure sustainability of the program . We previously indicated staff who had a breadth of knowledge and experience with using the lifts as “ super users ” on each of the hospital ’ s units . However , most of these staff had since left the organization . This allowed us to revamp our education process and look at other metrics to give a more accurate picture of our program .
Our current metrics include utilizing data from our event reporting system to ensure we are looking at near misses . This can assist with addressing a concern prior to an actual injury occurring . We also are implementing staff surveys with any new process or program change to track staff knowledge and potential success of the changes and education process . Recently we shifted our ceiling lift vendor to increase our online data tracking capabilities . We are able to track both how often and on what shifts lifts are being utilized . According to our event reporting by injury classification data , our system ’ s largest challenges are with lateral transfers , boosting / repositioning and mobility of patients . This type of info helps guide our changes to the education process and content .
While we are showing continued success in our injury reduction efforts for our staff , we do see the need to improve our ongoing education opportunities and the need for specialists on the unit .
What is the “ second set of hands ” initiative / program ? ( survey , results so far , etc .)
As identified when we completed our recent survey , we needed to train staff to be our “ go to ” team members on the units for safe patient handling and mobility questions . Due to the pandemic and staff shortages , we were not able to bring these team members off their units for training . To accomplish advanced training and provide hands-on experience with actual patients , we started the “ 2nd set of hands ” assistance program . Through a collaboration with therapy and nurse education , we increased our SPHM team members to assist with this training process . The SPHM team consisted of occupational and physical therapy practitioners who had an interest in safe patient handling techniques and collaborating with nursing .
To ensure we could track and identify successes and opportunities in our education program , we identified 1 unit at each of our 4 NorthShore Legacy hospital locations ( Evanston , Glenbrook , Highland Park , and Skokie ). At the onset of training , we provided a QR code to link to a survey ( see figure 1 ) about SPHM to the staff and made visits to staff huddles to share the program information . Once completed , we scheduled weekly 2 hour sessions at each site for SPHM team members to assist on the unit with patient movement and mobility . Topics typically addressed while on the unit include : questions about the deciding how to mobilize a patient ( basic mobility tool in Figure 2 ), which lift would be best to utilize , how to better utilize our hospital bed features , how to safely mobilize patient in the room / bathroom / hallway , and how to obtain additional furniture or equipment as needed .
The goal of this process is to improve collaboration amongst disciplines , increase staff comfortability and confidence of using SPHM techniques , and increase and promote safe patient mobility .
Stephanie Wilson , OTR / L , CSPHP Woman with shoulder length hair smiling .
Illinois Occupational Therapy Association | 2022 ISSUE 4 6