Safe Patient Handling - Creating a Culture of Safety

Gain new insights into how safe patient handling can be integrated into your organization's patient and staff safety agenda.

This topic is designed to equip you with the understanding of the critical need to establish a safe patient handling and mobility program as part of an organizational wide culture of safety. A culture of safety is an essential ingredient to a high quality of care and life for hospital patients, residents in LTC facilities or assisted living, and a high quality of work experience for employees. The benefits of safer patient handling are attributed to improved quality of care, increased patient and resident comfort, improved patient, resident and staff satisfaction, reduced workers' compensation costs, reduced lost and restricted workdays, reduced overtime and sick leave, reduced risk of falls, friction burns, skin tears, bruises, and dislocated shoulders, and higher staff morale. This topic will prepare you to identify the scope and profile of incidents and accidents, describe safe patient handling principles, identify unique clinical and environmental risks that cause injury, outline steps to implementing a culture of safety program, utilize teaching strategies to enhance staff competencies, and identify systems and tools that can enhance safe practices.

Faculty

Heather M. Monaghan, MHSc. RN

Visioning HealthCare