Ergonomics In The Laundry / Linen Industry

On March 13, 2003 OSHA released the first in a series of industry-specific guidelines for the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) in the workplace.  These guidelines focus on practical recommendations for nursing homes. Nursing homes were a high priority for OSHA given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports indicated nursing and personal care facilities ranked number one with the highest incidence rate of injury and illness from overexertion resulting in days away from work in 1994 (most recent data) for private sector industries.

Breakdown of 705,800 cases (32% of injuries reported) attributed to overexertion or repetitive motion
Reported injuries	Resulting from	% affecting the back
367,424	Lifting	65%
93,325	Pushing or pulling objects	52%
68,992	Holding, carrying or turning objects	58%

Bureau of Labor Statistics Report above resulted in the median time away from work as 6 days for lifting; 7 days for pushing/pulling; and 6 days for holding/carrying/turning.

Facilities throughout the U.S. are currently struggling to address the high incidence of work related MSD’s, cumulative trauma disorders (CTD’s) and repetitive motion injuries in their work population. Back injuries alone account for nearly 50 percent of all workers compensation claims within the healthcare and hospitality industries.

Tasks involving manual handling activities are performed by workers in housekeeping, laundry, food service, and facility maintenance. These tasks require repetitive or sustained use of poorly designed hand held tools and equipment.

A LOOK AT THE COST
While the precise cost of occupational MSD’s is not known, estimates vary from $13 billion annually [NIOSH 1996] to $20 billion annually [AFL-CIO 1997]. Regardless, the problem is large both in health and economic terms.

At Citizens Memorial Health Care Facility in Bolivar, Missouri, establishment of an ergonomics component in the existing safety and health program was reportedly followed by a reduction in the number of OSHA-recordable lifting-related injuries of at least 45% during each of the next four years, when compared to the level of injuries prior to the ergonomics efforts. The number of lost workdays associated with lifting-related injuries was reported to be at least 55% lower than levels during each of the previous four years. Citizens Memorial reported that these reductions contributed to a direct savings of approximately $150,000 in workers’ compensation costs over a five-year period.

HOW IT WORKS
There is growing evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of ergonomic programs and interventions in all industries. Successful implementations of such plans depend on how well they are designed to link to and compliment goals of other facility programs, such as risk management and employee safety.

Ergonomics programs are systematic methods of preventing, evaluating, and managing work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The most successful ergonomics programs have the following four elements:

Worksite analysis -- a safety and health audit that identifies those jobs and workstations that are potential work-related musculoskeletal hazards, the risk factors that pose the hazards, and the causes of the identified risk factors.

Injury prevention and control -- eliminating or minimizing those identified risk factors that pose hazards determined in the worksite analysis. These adaptations can be performed by changing the jobs, workstations, tools or environment to fit the worker.

Medical management -- the effective utilization of health-care resources to prevent or manage work-related musculoskeletal disorders.

Training and education -- providing necessary information to give both workers and managers and understanding of the potential risk of injuries, their causes, symptoms, prevention and treatment.