Safe Patient Handling Risk Assessment

Developed by: Swedish Medical Center

Description: A tool to assess patient handling practices by medical professionals, including nurses, hospital & in-patient care staff, and personal support workers. This resource is focused on gathering worker perspectives towards MSD risks and injuries. The assessment contains seven formal sections and a summary. The first two sections describe the workplace as a whole and are intended to be completed by a facility or unit manager before the formal assessment. Section three and seven are “conference” assessments consisting of specific questions and follow-up with the workers (referred to as “unit”). Sections four through six assess current practices, environmental factors, and the physical location of resources. This resource is intended to be used by someone with training or experience in assessing workplace MSDs since no guidelines or recommendations are included with the resource.

Keywords: patient, transfer, medical, handling, healthcare, technique, environment, personal support worker, in-patient, worker perspective