A national mandate for safe patient handling?
A national mandate for safe patient handling?
Bill would provide $200 million in grants for lifts
A new political climate and a growing roster of state laws have given new life to efforts to mandate safe patient handling in the nation's health care system.
Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-MI, reintroduced the Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2009, which would require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue a "safe patient handling and injury prevention standard." It is cosponsored by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-CA, who is chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the House Committee on Education and Labor.
The bill would require hospitals and other health care employers to establish an injury prevention plan and to purchase and maintain mechanical lift devices. It would cover nurses and other health care workers and applies to hospices, home health agencies, hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing homes, and "any similar health care facility that employs direct care registered nurses or other health care workers."
This comprehensive proposal goes beyond some of the existing state laws, says Anne Hudson, RN, a back-injured nurse from Coos Bay, OR, who founded WING USA (Work Injured Nurses' Group USA, www.wingusa.org). "Some of the state legislation has been directed either toward nursing homes or hospitals. Some of the state legislation also has only specified nurses and has not specified nursing assistants or other health care workers," she says.
$50 million for home care
To address the financial hardship that many health care employers would face, the bill authorizes $200 million in grant money to purchase equipment. Some $50 million of that would be directed toward home health care.
After years of advocating for safe patient handling, Hudson says she thinks the momentum continues to build. "Every month, every day that passes, more people are becoming active and becoming more aware of the dangers of lifting patients manually," she says.
Meanwhile, states continue to pass an array of safe patient handling laws. As of July, for example, New Jersey licensed health care facilities and Maryland nursing homes were required to establish a safe patient handling program. (Maryland hospitals were required to establish their programs in 2008.)
In May, the Illinois Legislature passed a bill requiring hospitals and nursing homes to establish a safe patient handling program and to restrict "to the extent feasible with existing equipment and aids, of manual patient handling or movement of all or most of a patient's weight except for emergency, life-threatening, or otherwise exceptional circumstances." In 2008, Congress also provided appropriations for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study the impact of lift devices on patient and nurse safety.
Several other states have crafted safe patient handling legislation, ranging from mandates to tax credits as incentives to buy equipment. "I think people see this as a piece of legislation that shouldn't be partisan. It's going to protect not only providers but the patients," says Rose Gonzalez, MPS, RN, director of government affairs at the American Nurses Association in Silver Spring, MD.
State efforts help raise awareness and support for federal legislation, says Hudson. "We should go forward on all fronts until all health care workers and residents and patients are protected," she adds.
A new political climate and a growing roster of state laws have given new life to efforts to mandate safe patient handling in the nation's health care system.Subscribe Now for Access
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