Osha Drafts Ergonomics Guidelines For Nursing Homes

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Created on Monday, 02 December 2002 13:10

Written by Staff

WASHINGTON -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced the first set of industry-specific ergonomic guidelines -- Guidelines for Nursing Homes.

"These guidelines are the result of an extensive and cooperative process involving a wide-ranging, inclusive review of both scientific information and existing ergonomic practices and programs in the nursing home," said OSHA Administrator John Henshaw. "We also conducted one-on-one meetings with major stakeholder groups to gather information on best practices that have been successfully used in the nursing home industry to ensure we are recommending practical solutions that will work in the real world."

The guidelines are in three parts, with a reference list at the end:

• Management Practices discusses the importance of management commitment and employee participation inergonomics training, occupational health management of musculoskeletal disorders, and ergonomics program evaluation;

• Worksite Analysis discusses assessment of resident handling tasks and activities other than resident handling; and

• Control Methods contains illustrations that demonstrate various methods to control common ergonomic stressors.

The guidelines are intended to provide practical solutions for reducing ergonomic-related injuries and illnesses in nursing homes. They will not be used for enforcement purposes. The darft guidelines are available online at OSHA's website. The draft guidelines are also available in adobe acrobat format.