- Photos by Caroline Esposito
Conference promotes safe patient handling
 
By DEBORAH A. MILES
One of the key initiatives at the 3rd Annual Safe Patient Handling Conference held in October in Niagara Falls was to let participants know individual health and safety committees can be a powerful tool.

“Our goal is to get safe-patient-handling techniques and equipment in all our facilities,” said Kathy D’Arminio, PEF Health and Safety Committee chair.

“The way to do this is by educating our members and having them go back to their facilities and form committees to work with managers.”

D’Arminio said the Oxford Veterans’ Home in Chenango County is an excellent example of how a health and safety committee can make a difference. In early November, staff and clients moved into a new building equipped with ceiling tracks and lift devices in each room.

“Every facility needs a starting point,” D’Arminio said. “The latest Workers Compensation report shows a staggering increase in the number of people unable to work due to back and neck injuries. Many of these could have been avoided with the proper equipment and implementation of a safe-patient-handling program.

A starting point for Carol Ferrante, a PEF Executive Board member and an occupational therapy assistant 2 at Long Island Developmental Disabilities Services Office (DDSO), began when a committee was launched earlier this year.
Ferrante said the committee met three times and is conducting focus groups to get comments from staff to better understand what equipment and practices are in use, and what the barriers are to accessing equipment.

Approximately 300 PEF members work at this DDSO. For her efforts in taking the lead to develop a pilot program, Ferrante was honored at the conference with an award for promoting safe patient handling.

She said one of the highlights of the conference was the helpfulness of the vendors.

“They are very willing to come to Long Island DDSO to do in-service training, and even loan some equipment to try out,” Ferrante said.

The Western New York DDSO (WNYDDSO) in West Seneca organized a safe-patient-handling committee last year after PEF Division 167 Assistant Council Leader Tom Rabent went to his first Safe-Patient-Handling Conference.

Rabent, a committee member, said this year’s conference was equally helpful, as many of the workshops focused on residential and day rehabilitation program sites.

“It was also nice hearing what other people were doing at their agencies and how they are addressing similar issues,” he said.

With an active health and safety committee at WNYDDSO that meets monthly, Rabent said it is moving forward on various levels to address problems.

“We had 7,236 lost work days at our workplace in fiscal year 2008-09 and many were due to back and neck injuries related to lifting individuals we serve.

We are the second highest after Finger Lakes DDSO,” Rabent said. “Our administration has been very supportive, as we all want to decrease these numbers.”

The conference was sponsored by the state Department of Labor and the Zero Lift Task Force. Conference materials are available on the PEF Web site under Health and Safety.


— Photos by Deborah Ann Smith
New vet’s home becomes a reality

In early November, the NYS Veterans’ Home in Oxford opened a new 220,000-square-foot facility. The state-of-the-art building is a result of an active joint health and safety committee that worked to provide a better and safer home for the 242 residents.

PEF members who work at the home, located about 30 miles north of Binghamton, said it has 174 ceiling tracks which will help transport residents safely to other areas of the building without causing injury to staff.

David Crugnale, a physician assistant and PEF health and safety committee co-chair at the state Department of Health, said he was pleased with the new facility.

“All departments worked together on the move plan,” Crugnale said. “We were meeting once a month, then twice a month, and then once a week. It was well worth the effort for our successful outcome.” — Deborah A. Miles