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Workplace Health and Safety – Safe Patient Handling and Movement
The
ANA supports legislation in support of safe patient handling and movement in
order to decrease likelihood of injuries to nurses in the course of patient
lifting, transferring, and positioning. Incidence of injuries to nurses is high
due to position handling and movement, and the ANA advocates for the use of
mechanical assistance to decrease or eliminate musculoskeletal injury.
Statistically nurses lift an average of 1.8 tons per shift and up to 38% of
nurses have back injuries as a result of manual handling (American Nurses Association,
n.d.).
