Workplace Injuries among Acute Care Nurses: Implications for the Healthcare System

PROJECT SUMMARY Workplace injuries incurred by nurses’ accounts for more than one third of the identified Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)-reportable injuries, an incidence that is almost five times that reported for physicians, dentists, and residents. Furthermore, workplace injuries among nurses can result in the loss of

productivity, which potentially affects the quality of care and patient outcomes. Injuries to nurses are also a sizable financial burden for health care organizations as they struggle to fill nurse vacancies secondary to injury and maintain an adequate number of nurses to meet the needs of the healthcare delivery team. Yet, little

is known about the underlying factors that contribute to workplace injuries among nurses and the injury-related costs. Hospitals have unique challenges that place workers at risk for injury; challenges that are uncommon in other workplace settings. Therefore, the specific aims of the study are 1) to determine the incidence of

occupational injuries among hospital-based acute care nurses, 2) to estimate the association between aspects of the hospital practice environment and workplace injuries among nurses, and 3) to estimate the associated facility costs that result from occupational injuries incurred by hospital-based acute care

nurses. Data from multiple sources will be merged to address the aims of the study including injury data on nurses working in six large academic medical centers that are part of Emory University Healthcare in Atlanta, GA. The OSHA-reportable injuries of interest include exposure to blood or body fluids, sprain, strain, contusion,

laceration, foreign body, dermatitis, and inflammation. The most common sources of these injuries include sharps, patient handling, bodily motion, another human, body fluids, and assault. Unit-level monthly data on these nurse injuries will be linked with data on the characteristics of hospital units such as unit type, the

educational attainment of nurses, aspects of the nurse practice environment, nurse staffing metrics, working hours, and turnover, in an effort to identify the unit-level factors that might be associated with workplace injuries among nurses. A series of univariate and multivariate regression models will be fit to identify the

specific factors associated with workplace injuries among these nurses. In addition, the associated costs of workplace injuries will be estimated using nursing salary data and computed under different hypothetical scenarios. This study will fill the knowledge gap and improve our understanding of workplace injuries among

hospital-based acute care nurses. The results of this study will be vitally important to hospital managers and financial administrators in their efforts to provide a practice environment where nurses can deliver patient care with minimal or no risk of workplace injury. This interdisciplinary team includes experts in the areas of

outcomes research, healthcare organization, workforce, and analytics and has a long record of collaborative research and dissemination activities. As a team, we are well positioned to execute a successful study on workplace injuries among acute care nurses.