Authors (including presenting author) :
Ling PC(1), Chan LFE(1), Tam LW(1), Lee SY(1), Chan, WK(1), Leung, SMK(1) & Chan, CHK(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Tuberculosis & Chest (DTBC), TWGHs Wong Tai Sin Hospital(WTSH)
Introduction :
In Hong Kong, the Occupational Safety & Health statistics in 2023 released by Labour Department (LD) 2024, in the area of Human Health Services, there was 418 & 416 injured cases whilst lifting and carrying in 2022 & 2023 respectively.
Other than statistics from LD, local context data from WTSH DTBC, Injury-On-Duty (IOD) AIRS reports from 2017 to 2024 also shown that manual handling operation (MHO) related, including sprain & strain incidents, rated as the top three categories of IOD events (17%). Furthermore, patient care assistants (PCAs) and nurses were rated as 50% & 39% as IOD injured staff respectively.
In order to minimise the MHO related IOD incidents in WTSH DTBC, MHO Angels program is introduced which aims at enhancement of staff awareness on MHO activities through onsite or surprised inspections, education, practical workshops, and reminders by “MHO Angels” on MHO safety to daily work of staff.
Objectives :
The goal of this program is to cultivate the safe MHO culture and extend to all safe working and environment culture in DTBC.
Methodology :
MHO Train-the-Trainers (T-T-Ts) / MHO Angels performed an initial assessment of napkin changing for every PCA in DTBC by using Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA)(Hedge, 1993) tool. Through the assessment, score of RULA were marked and the risks inducing the MHO problems were identified. Then MHO Angels would provide tailor-made specific education / warm reminds to PCAs in order to alert their positions & preparations throughout the napkin changes to patients. MHO Angels will perform RULA assessment again on napkin changing to all PCAs after various MHO awareness activities were launched, e.g. photo-hunting games, poster presentations, surprised checking with warm reminds.
Result & Outcome :
37 PCAs (6 male, 31 female) were assessed during July-November 2024. Mean score of RULA that PCA gained is 5 (46%); scored 6 and >=7 has 8% and 22% respectively. For those with high RULA score, the risks that lead to back & muscle sprains / injuries were identified, including no lowering of bedside rails (24%); no adjustment of the bed height (40.5%); various body height of staff combination to perform the task. Both factors would lead to bending forward of the waist, especially more severe for those without lowering of the bedside rails and adjustment of bed height.
Since the activities are ongoing, the successful criteria of this program would be looking forward to lower the high percentage (pre-intervention as total 30%) of the high RULA score (score 6 or above). Results of the program will be available in Feb 2025.
