Back Injuries Affect Nurse Workforce Numbers, Patient Safety, Health Care Costs

Are there nurses out there somewhere who’ve managed to avoid a back injury over the course of their career? I know that during my nursing education proper body mechanics and safe methods for lifting/moving almost anybody and anything were stressed over and over. Our instructors kept a close eye on us and we were summarily called to task if we were seen putting our musculoskeletal systems at risk.

Despite the rigorous reinforcement of the fundamentals of lifting, however, sometimes a situation of an urgent nature will present itself. The sort of situation that calls for action, where there’s no time to pause a moment to consider one’s ideal positioning or to put a lift apparatus into use. Such a situation was the genesis of my back injury. I was luckier than most. My herniated disc responded well to anti-inflammatory drugs and exercise therapy. I was asymptomatic the majority of the time with a flare-up occurring perhaps once every couple years. Down the road, several years after I left clinical nursing, the disc ruptured and required a laminectomy—with an excellent result, I’m happy to report.

My RN friend, Joan, has not been so fortunate. She suffered a work related back injury and had the first of four surgeries when she was only 24. For most of the ensuing 28 years she has had to deal with persistent back pain. She phoned me one day several years ago and told me to open the newspaper to the obituary page. “Do you see the obit for Jane Doe [a nod to HIPPA]?” she asked. “Yes, I see it,” I replied. At this point I must explain that Joan is quite comedic, something that is not always easy to convey via the written word, where inflections can’t be heard and interpreted.

“Well, she’s the patient I was lifting when I damaged my disc. I’ll bet she has had a better and more pain free 16 years than I’ve had!,” she said in mock indignation. I pointed out that while it might be true that Mrs. Doe had had perhaps several pain-free years, at least Joan was still among the living. “There are days when I don’t consider that a good thing,” she said.

In the state of Texas, an activist representative, Senfronia Thompson, has authored and introduced into legislation a bill aimed at reducing workplace injuries for nurses and other health care workers. The bill requires hospitals to have safe lift policies, such as providing lifting equipment and providing training to employees to avoid debilitating back and other musculoskeletal injuries.

Data collected in 2007 shows that health care workers nationwide suffered 66,060 work-related musculoskeletal injuries. These workers missed 43,000 days of work that year, the third most of any occupation sector.

That nursing is significantly made up of an aging work force that is burdened with caring for an increasingly obese patient population, nurses are at increased risk for incurring a musculoskeletal injury. Reducing these injuries is safer for the patient and will serve to keep nurses at the bedside. The financial ramifications of injury reduction are huge. An analysis of 723 such injuries at University of California hospitals in 2003 estimates the injuries cost the University system between $8 and $11 million.

Kudos to Rep. Thompson for taking action on the issue of protecting health care workers. If they haven’t already, other states should follow suit.

What is your state or hospital doing to prevent such injuries?