Resources

Learn More About Atlas Lift Tech

Atlas Lift Tech is an innovative safe patient handling service provider for acute care, long term care and nursing facilities, especially those interested in keeping up with safe patient handling legislation. As a vendor-neutral contract service, Atlas serves patients and nurses by mobilizing patients in the safest environment for caregivers.  In doing so, Atlas provides sustainable safe patient handling programs that deliver safety, satisfaction and savings. Atlas recognizes the complexity of the high-volume, high-risk world of safe patient handling, and we work with you to overcome the new challenges associated with new solutions. We put together the pieces of the safe patient handling puzzle so that nursing staff members at any facility enjoy the satisfaction and safety associated with a successful program.

Recommended Safe Patient Handling Resources:

October 7, 2011-California Approves Landmark Hospital Patient and Health Care Worker Injury Protection Act (AB 1136):

Read the Summary of the Bill Here

Read the Final Version of the Bill Here

Back Injury Among Nurses and Safe Patient Handling Interventions:

Statement from Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA on the Increase
of Nonfatal Occupational Injuries Among Health Care Workers-11/9/2011

This report by the Department of Labor reveals an increase in musculoskeletal injuries among long term care staff in 2010. In response to this trend, OSHA is stepping up efforts aimed at preventing these injuries.

Evidence-Based Practices for Safe Patient Handling and Movement

This article provides an overview of the injuries associated with manual patient handling as well as the effectiveness of safe patient handling interventions for nursing workplace safety.

The Elephant in the Room: Huge Rates of Nursing and Healthcare Worker Injury

This concise report details the disproportionate risk of injury associated with manual patient handling and includes many useful and interesting images.

Safe Lifting Practices for Nurses

This extensive white paper describes strategies for preventing back injury among nurses through a safe patient handling program.

The Business Case for Safe Patient Handling: Summaries of Three Recent Studies Detailing the Cost Benefits

This white paper discusses the VA’s business case around their safe patient handling programs, identifying key areas of expenditure and savings.

Lift Teams:

Rethinking Lift Teams

As legislative mandates are driving changes in safety and outcomes, healthcare organizations are seeking creative methods to meet such mandates. Lift teams may serve as such a strategy. This article reviews and discusses the definition of a lift team, its history, and benefits to both healthcare workers and patients and provide perspective from a lift team contract service.

WING USA Article – William Charney

“There is a plethora of published data on high rates of injury to healthcare workers, so much so that states have passed Safe Patient Handling legislation to combat the problem…In all facilities studied over a 15 year period, Lift Teams have proven to reduce injury rates and lost time rates as great as 90%.”

CNA – Why Lift Teams are Critical

“RNs manually lift an estimated 1.8 tons, or 3.600 pounds, per shift…every time an RN lifts a person mnaually, she or he risks 75 percent chance of back injury…a 500-bed hospital implementing lift teams reduced injury claims by 69 percent and saved almost $9,000 per injury.”

The Quest to Prevent Employee Injury-Implementation of a Lift Team

This is a review of a lift team program that failed to deliver the results seen with earlier studies. This article stresses the importance of communication and clear policies within a program, citing these areas as barriers to success.

Safe Patient Handling and Nurse Retention:

Wisdom at Work

This work mentions safe patient handling in passing, however, the document addresses the fact that the average age of a nurse in America is on the rise. This document is useful in  making the case that cumulative musculoskeletal injuries are undermining nursing leadership by surfacing in aging, experienced nursing staff members.

Impact of Reducing Physical Practice Burdens on Retention of Experienced Nurses at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California

This executive summary is a response to “Wisdom at Work,” dealing directly with one program’s lack of success using the lift team as a retention strategy. This insists on the importance of integrating the lift team into the work of nurses and successfully marketing the program.

The Epidemiology of Back Injury in Healthcare:

Lumbar Spine Forces during Manoeuvring of Ceiling-based and Floor-based Patient Transfer Devices

This article by Bill Marras covers the forces placed on the human body during performance of safe patient handling practices. This insists not only on the need for safe patient handling practices, but on the need for education and awareness of the challenges posed by safe patient handling equipment.

A Comprehensive Analysis of Low Back Disorder Risk and Spinal Loading During The Transferring and Repositioning of Patients Using Different Techniques

This article by Bill Marras covers the forces placed on the human body during manual patient handling. This article offers valuable insight into the root causes of back injury.

Nurses Speak:

CNA – The Voice of California RNs

“I am a 27 year old and awaiting my third back surgery from being injuried on the unit…So when you ask if a ‘lift team is really a strike issue’ my colleagues and I would have to answer most empathically YES!”

CNA – The Voice of California RNs

“We have experienced 16 RN patient mobility injuries, six of which have required time off for the injured nurse…Lift teams are proven to work, are cost effective, can be written into the contract and can be implemented almost immediately.”

Atlas Lift Tech Brochures & News:

Atlas Booklet

Atlas Brochure

Patron Member of AALTCN

AB 1136 California Lift Team Bill Compliance:

Read important information below on the newly passed California Safe Patient Handling Legislation – AB 1136 Lift Team Bill.  This new law is relevant if you are interested in any of the following:

-  AB 1136 Lift Bill Legislation Compliance

-  Safe Patient Handling Legislation Compliance

-  Health Care Worker Injury Protection Act

-  California Lift Team Bill / Safe Patient Handling Bill Compliance

-  SPH Lift Team Legislation / Safe Patient Handling Act California

RNs Praise Signing of Landmark Lift Bill to Protect Patients, Nurses

CNA Press Release: For Immediate Release October 7, 2011 The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United today praised the decision by California Gov. Jerry Brown to sign an important workplace safety bill to protect registered nurses and other healthcare employees from disabling injuries and safeguard patients from preventable falls. AB 1136 (Swanson), sponsored by CNA/NNU, requires all California hospitals to have a safe patient handling policy, including “lift teams” trained to move patients using proper lift equipment. Earlier versions of the bill were vetoed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger despite a virtual epidemic of debilitating injuries to nurses, other health workers, and patients linked to lack of safe policies. “With this critical law, California has taken another big step to ensure that patients and nurses are safe in hospitals,” said CNA/NNU Legislative Director Bonnie Castillo, RN. “This law will prevent the most common injury for nurses and patients, falls that are the direct result of not having lift teams, policies, or equipment needed to stop accidents and reduce injuries.” CNA/NNU and RNs worked hard to pass the bill against substantial opposition from the California Hospital Association, one of the largest and wealthiest corporate lobbying firms in Sacramento. A handful of other states have passed patient handling legislation, but the California law is believed to be the strongest in requiring hospital compliance. Bureau of Labor Statistics data in 2008 documented that nationally, 36,000 healthcare workers were injured by lifting and transferring patients. Nurses endure more work-related musculoskeletal injuries than truck drivers or construction workers – and California leads the nation in the number of musculoskeletal injuries. Nursing surveys have found that 83 percent of RNs work in spite of back pain, 52 percent report chronic back pain, and 12 percent who leave the profession say back injuries were the main, or a major, reason for leaving the RN workforce. “California’s nursing workforce is aging at the same time patient acuity and obesity are rising. Manual lifting can injure fragile patients by putting too much pressure on sensitive joints and compromised skin. This is a great step forward to protect our nurses and other healthcare workers from injury, and provide patients with safe and appropriate care,” Castillo said. Hospitals that have lift teams in place have seen a significant drop in such injuries. .

California SPH Legislation: AB 1136 Lift Team Bill

Article written by Atlas Lift Tech: With several notable exceptions, most California facilities have no comprehensive SPHM program to prevent caregiver injury and promote patient safety through progressive mobility. Between 2004 and 2008, five versions of safe patient handling legislation were proposed in California and each was vetoed by then Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who cited a range of reasons in his subsequent veto statements. These reasons included the existing financial burdens on healthcare institutions, leaving SPHM programs to the discretion of the facility, the presence of existing workplace safety regulations, and, finally, the fact that some facilities had developed programs and this seemed to be the wave of the future-with or without legislation in place. AB 1136 aims to change this by amending the 1973 California Occupational Safety and Health Act to include provisions directly related to preventing musculoskeletal injuries to caregivers, who lift an estimated 1.8 tons per 8 hour shift.[i] According to a 2000 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), healthcare workers sustain 4.5 times as many overexertion injuries as any other type of worker.^[ii]A 2002 BLS report names the combined disciplines of health care work as the leader for frequency of on-the-job musculoskeletal injuries.^{[iii] [iv] [v] [vi]}A 2007 BLS report naming the top ten professions most likely to receive a back injury on the job includes CNAs, LVNs, RNs, PTs, radiology technicians, and health aides as separate categories, saturating this ‘top ten’ listwith healthcare workers.^[vii] The corresponding years between the BLS data and the California vetoes indicates the persisting need for this legislation. AB 1136 would require that general acute care hospitals develop a Safe Patient Handling policy for all patient care units, provide trained lift teams or other specially trained support staff, and training to staff members on vertical and lateral transfers, bariatric mobility, repositioning and ambulation. The deadline for policy development set forth in AB 1136 is January 1, 2013. Some have expressed concern over ‘lift team language’ in previous versions of California SPHM legislation. In light of this, AB 1136 requires that a registered nurse be present to observe and direct patient mobility tasks performed by the lift team, to ensure that patient precautions are noted and accommodated. In addition to these steps, the bill requires that employers adopt a patient protection and health care worker back injury prevention plan as part of existing injury and illness prevention departments. Employers would also be prohibited from taking disciplinary action against employees who refuse to perform patient mobility tasks perceived to be dangerous.