Safety Issues & Answers

When making the decision on where and when to work, nurses are saying that health and safety concerns are a major factor. In an industry where the professionals have such an indelible effect on the well being of our communities, healthcare employers are finding it more and more important to protect the well being of their own employees, especially if they want to retain those workers.

The American Nursing Association released the results to an online health and safety survey earlier this year, announcing that 88 percent of nurses reported that health and safety concerns influence their decisions to keep working in the field of nursing and the kind of nursing they choose to perform.

“Nurses shouldn’t fear for their own health and safety when they go to work,” says ANA president Mary Foley, MS, RN.

Smart healthcare employers, from hospitals to nursing homes to medical clinics, are working hard to improve the standards of working for their nurses. The significant safety issues? Many nurses fear things such as back injury, contracting disease from needles and on-the-job assault.

“The survey results call for immediate action to make the health care workplace safe,” says Foley.

In order to recruit and retain the best employees, employers are working to improve their facilities. Organizations are bringing new devices and procedures to the workplace:

Lifting and transfer devices to answer the 60% of nurses concerned with sustaining a disabling back injury;

Safe needle devices to answer the 45% of nurses concerned with contracting HIV or hepatitis from a needlestick injury;

Non-latex, un-powdered gloves to answer the 21% of nurses concerned with developing a latex allergy.

Many other steps are being taken to respond to nurses’ worries. With more than 70% of nurses citing acute and chronic effects of stress and overwork as one of their top concerns, healthcare employers are working—along with new government legislation—to change scheduling procedures, stress management programs and the general work environment.

“Patients will not get the type of care they deserve when nurses are stressed, overworked and concerned for their own health and safety,” says Foley.

The goal in changing the healthcare workplace is having employers take responsibility for the well being of their nurses, so that the nurses can feel safe and healthy enough to concentrate on the well being of their patients.