Authors (including presenting author) :
Chan HY(1), Tung MK(2), Lai YW(3), Cheung YK(4), Chan CC(5), Leung YK(6)
Affiliation :
(1) Supporting Services Department, Kwong Wah Hospital
(2) Administrative Services Division, Kwong Wah Hospital
(3) Central Nursing Division, Kwong Wah Hospital
(4) Physiotherapy Department, Kwong Wah Hospital
(5) Occupational Therapy Department, Kwong Wah Hospital
(6) Supporting Services Department, Kwong Wah Hospital
Introduction :
Manual handling operations (MHO) was the most common cause of injury on duty (IOD) cases in the Non-Emergency Ambulance Transfer Service (NEATS) team in Kwong Wah Hospital over the past years. A review was conducted to analyse the IOD cases with concerted efforts from Supporting Services Department, Hospital OSH team, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Department in promoting a work safe environment and reducing IOD cases.
Objectives :
To reduce IOD cases and to promote a work safe behavior environment in the department.
Methodology :
Various actions were taken to tackle the OSH issue in the patient transfer activities, including:
1. Conducting an analysis to identify the root cause of the surging number of IOD cases in past years;
2. Engaging occupational therapists to tailor made Ba Duan Jin (八段錦) exercises for NEATS staff with an aim to strengthen their core muscles involving in patient transfer activities;
3. Engaging hospital OSH team and physiotherapists to design a Work Safe Behaviour Assessment Checklist and to train up assessors in department for continuous internal monitoring on two common MHO activities – namely “Bed to stretcher patient transfer” and “Patient transfer from wheelchair to seats inside NEATS vehicle”; and
4. Adoption of “Pointing and Calling” (指差呼稱) in daily patient transfer activities.
Result & Outcome :
Since the programme was rolled out in early 2020, two Work Safe Behaviour assessors were trained up in NEATS and they have conducted over 28 observations on 84 patient transfers by staff. Over 90% of patient transfers were classified as “safe behaviour”. Immediate feedbacks were given to staff for patient transfer steps with improvement areas.
There were seven and eight reported IOD cases in 2018 and 2019 in NEATS, involving 341 and 544 sick leave days. With the implementation of continuous Work Safe Behaviour Assessment and the adoption of “Pointing and Calling” in daily patient transfers activities, the number of IOD cases had significantly reduced to two cases in 2020, involving 16 sick leave days. There were no IOD cases recorded since February 2020 till the end of 2020.
In conclusion, the Work Safe Behaviour Enhancement Programme was effective in promoting a work safe environment in KWH NEATS team and cross-specialty collaboration is essential in tackling OSH issues in manual handling operations.
