Improving safe consumer transfers in a day treatment setting using training and feedback

Area of Science:

• Healthcare worker safety
• Occupational health interventions
• Disability support services

Background:

• Patient transfers are a high-risk activity for healthcare worker injuries.
• Existing protocols may not adequately address safe lifting techniques.
• A need exists for effective, cost-efficient interventions to improve patient handling.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an intervention package to increase safe patient-transfers.
• To assess the impact of training, supervisory feedback, and graphic feedback on lifting safety.
• To measure the effectiveness of the intervention across different patient lifting techniques.

Main Methods:

• A Performance Diagnostic Checklist (PDC) identified areas for intervention.
• A multiple baseline (MBL) design was employed across two lifting techniques (pivot and trunk).
• The intervention package was applied to three common patient lifts used by healthcare workers.

Main Results:

• The intervention package led to a substantial increase in overall safe patient-transfer performance.
• Group safety performance increased by 34% and 29% over baseline for the targeted lifts.
• A 28% increase over baseline was observed for the non-targeted lift, demonstrating generalization.

Conclusions:

• The developed intervention package is effective in improving safe patient-transfer behaviors.
• This approach offers an efficient and cost-effective solution for reducing injuries in healthcare settings.
• Findings are applicable to environments with frequent patient transfers, such as hospitals and day treatment centers.