Cost-benefit analysis of overhead lift use peer coaching

Patient handling through lifting and moving of patients or residents, especially in a long-term care setting, is a key risk factor leading to injuries in healthcare workers.1–3 These injuries cause enormous pain and suffering to the healthcare workers and their families, as well as impose an enormous economic burden on society through productivity losses, and increase in healthcare costs and workers compensation costs. Many of these patient handling injuries can be prevented through appropriate use of engineering control interventions, for example, through the introduction of overhead lift equipment, in long-term care facilities.4

The paper by Tompa et al5 uses an analytic approach to evaluate a peer coaching programme for an overhead lift use intervention in the long-term care sector in British Columbia, Canada, by assessing its impact on reduction of injuries for healthcare workers (related to patient handling). It...

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