Efficiency of overhead ceiling lifts in reducing musculoskeletal injury among carers working in long-term care institutions

A systematic review of occupational safety and health business cases

“…Six articles reported on three studies twice so we included each study only once which left us with 18 articles (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). In one article, four cases were reported, in another three cases, and in one report, three cases were reported, resulting in 26 cases for use in the review (9,11,24,26,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42) We excluded cases that: (i) did not concern occupational health but general health interventions such as case studies of influenza vaccination (43)(44)(45)(46)(47); (ii) did not include costs and benefits in monetary terms (48); (iii) did not include productivity measures (49); (iv) did not include the costs of the intervention (50); (v) were economic models only (51); or (vi) had calculated costs and benefits relative only to production (52).…”

“…In one case, the pre-intervention trend was assumed to continue after the intervention and the difference between the extrapolated pre-intervention trend and the measured value was taken as the benefit of the intervention (26). In two other studies, an additional assumption was made that the avoided indirect costs, such as avoided turnover and training of new personnel, would be equal to the avoided direct costs from workers' compensation claims (29,32).…”

“…In one ex-ante case, the authors state that the firm wanted a pay-back period of 2-3 years (41). However, even with a payback period of more than five years, authors Business cases for occupational safety and health call their results supportive of the intervention (29). Nevertheless, this would mean that the majority of the reported cases would be acceptable to management.…”

Musculoskeletal injuries among hospital patient care staff before and after implementation of patient lift and transfer equipment

“…A number of barriers to the use of lift equipment have been described (18)(19)(20); studies suggest mechanical patient lifts are not regularly used in patient care tasks (1,(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). Although equipment effectiveness has been demonstrated in the long-term care setting (23,(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32), results may not be generalizable to the acute care setting, which is characterized by more extensive patient turnover, frequent and abrupt changes to patient acuity, a variety of patient…”

Ergonomic Explorations for the Safety and Health Improvement in Hospital and Healthcare Professions

“…According to a recent study, national injury costs for nursing professions in the US have been estimated to be $1.6 billion, $344 million, $192 million, $65 million, and $134 million for low back, shoulder, knee, neck, and hand/wrist cases, respectively [3]. The costs of average MSD claim have been reported between $6,190 to $93,225 [4][5][6], and average low-back claim costs ranged from $2,270 to $14,235 [7][8][9][10]. These cost figures certainly show that MSDs are significant burdens on the health care sector and specifically on the health care workers.…”