News Release

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing is one of 26 schools nationwide – and the only one in North Carolina – participating in a pilot program on safe patient handling and movement as a part of the nursing curriculum.

Dr. Audrey Nelson, director of the Patient Safety Research Center in Tampa, Fla., developed the program in collaboration with the American Nurses Association and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a component of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The curriculum is aimed at improving safe patient handling and movement systems, thereby preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders affecting a significant portion of the nursing work force. Nurses, who traditionally have been manually handling patients, also have one of the highest injury rates of all industries, statistics indicate.

"Nurses assist patients to move in a variety of ways from something as simple as moving up in bed to moving from the bed to a chair, or moving from the bed to the bathroom, plus many more activities each day. Patient handling and movement is a part of basic nursing care," said Carol Durham, director of the Clinical Education and Resource Center at UNC’s School of Nursing and the UNC site’s principal investigator.

The safe patient handling and movement initiative could help protect nurses from further injury now and prevent younger nurses from developing musculoskeletal disorders in the future, Durham said.

"Nursing is the only profession that considers 100 pounds to be light," she added. "All other professions that are required to lift or move this much weight use assistive equipment. If you consider the number of patients per day (six), multiplied by the number of lifts per patient per day (six), multiplied by the average weight of a patient (185), a nurse can lift as much as 6,600 pounds per day. It is no wonder nurses are at such high risk for injury."

The American Nurses Association is seeking to lead a profession-wide effort to prevent back and other musculoskeletal injuries through greater education and training, and increased use of assistive equipment and patient-handling devices. The use of safe patient handling and movement devices brings about a needed culture change in the nursing profession, similar to the campaigns for universal precautions and needlestick prevention in the 1980s and 1990s, Durham said.

The pilot program began this semester with the undergraduate bachelor of science in nursing students in their fundamental skills lab. Lindsay Allen is a co-investigator in the study and is helping to train teaching assistants, teach the safe patient handling and movement curriculum, and collect data. Jean LeCluyse, Clinical Education and Resource Center assistant and medical illustrator, has created images to help students understand the assistive equipment and how it is used.

The national study brings together participating nursing schools and vendors of assistive equipment and patient-handling devices. UNC has different types of equipment on loan from ARJO, including gait belts with handles, a stand-assist lift, a mobile mechanical full-body lift, a ceiling (over-bed) lift, and a lateral transfer device, as well as friction-reducing transfer devices. All students will practice use of these devices through simulated patient scenarios to prepare them for clinical.

"In the past, many health-care organizations have not wanted to invest in assistive equipment because it is so costly. But what we’re learning is that not investing in the equipment is putting our patients and our nurses at risk for injuries," said Durham. "In the long run, the equipment will pay for itself because agencies won’t experience costs associated with diminished capacity because nurses are unable to work due to injury."

UNC’s School of Nursing was established in 1950 in response to the overwhelming need for nurses in North Carolina. It was the first nursing school in the state to: offer a four-year bachelor’s degree (1950), offer a master’s degree in nursing (1955), initiate continuing education for nurses (1964), offer a doctorate in nursing (1989) and offer an accelerated bachelor’s degree option for second degree students (2001).

- 30 -

Note: An illustration of a mobile full body lift, created by Jean LeCluyse, CERC assistant and medical illustrator, is at http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/other/body_lift.jpg.

School of Nursing contact: Amanda Dindino, (919) 966-4619 or amanda_dindino@unc.edu