Slip, Trip, and Fall Prevention for Healthcare Workers

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Slip, Trip, and Fall Prevention for Healthcare Workers

J. Bell / J. W. Collins / E. Dalsey / V. Sublet

Work-related slip, trip, and fall incidents can frequently result in serious disabling injuries that impact a healthcare employee's ability to do his or her job, often resulting in lost workdays, reduced productivity, expensive worker compensation claims, and diminished ability to care for patients. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009), the incidence rate of lost-workday injuries from slips, trips, and falls (STFs) on the same level in hospitals was 38.2 per 10,000 employees, which was 90% greater than the average rate for all other private industries combined (20.1 per 10,000 employees). STFs as a whole are the second most common cause of lost-workday injuries in hospitals. An analysis of workers' compensation injury claims from acute-care hospitals (Bell et al. 2008) showed that the lower extremities (knees, ankles, feet) were the body parts most commonly injured after STFs and the nature of injury was most often sprains, strains, dislocations and tears. In addition, STFs were significantly more likely to result in fractures and multiple injuries than were other types of injuries.