Health Care Ergonomics: Contributions of Thomas Waters

The aim of this study was to assess the contributions of Thomas Waters's work in the field of health care ergonomics and beyond.

Waters's research of safe patient handling with a focus on reducing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in health care workers contributed to current studies and prevention strategies. He worked with several groups to share his research and assist in developing safe patient handling guidelines and curriculum for nursing students and health care workers.

The citations of articles that were published by Waters in health care ergonomics were evaluated for quality and themes of conclusions. Quality was assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool and centrality to original research rating. Themes were documented by the type of population the citing articles were investigating.

In total, 266 articles that referenced the top seven cited articles were evaluated. More than 95% of them were rated either medium or high quality. The important themes of these citing articles were as follows: (a) Safe patient handling is effective in reducing MSDs in health care workers. (b) Shift work has negative impact on nurses. (c) There is no safe way to manually lift a patient. (d) Nurse curriculums should contain safe patient handling.

The research of Waters has contributed significantly to the health care ergonomics and beyond. His work, in combination with other pioneers in the field, has generated multiple initiatives, such as a standard safe patient-handling curriculum and safe patient-handling programs.