Patient Safety Programs Pay Off for Healthcare Workers

The patient safety movement has made the healthcare workplace safer for employees too, a risk analysis suggests.

"We think the intense emphasis on patient safety has a direct implication on worker safety," Martha Bronson Posey, senior consultant and actuary with the Actuarial & Analytics group within Aon Global Risk Consulting. "The patient and worker safety programs share a lot of the same characteristics. So if your environment is safer for your patients it is inherently safer for your workers."

Aon projects that healthcare systems across the nation will experience an annual loss rate of $.79 per $100 of payroll in 2013, which continues the stability that has been in place since 2008. That loss rates will continue to increase at a 1% annual rate.

The findings are detailed in Aon's Health Care Workers' Compensation Barometer report, representing workers' compensation exposures from more than 1,000 healthcare facilities across the nation.

Posey says the stability in workers' compensation loss rates is linked to the decrease in claims frequency, which has experienced a steady decline over the past decade.

In addition to patient safety programs, Posey says the decrease in workers compensation claims frequency could be credited to new technologies, including beds and patient lifting devices.

In addition, low nursing staff turnover in a weak economy has meant the retention of more experienced and competent staff. "So the recession in the economy has had an impact. The average experience and competency has risen, so we are seeing that as a driver for claims frequency decreasing," Posey says.

The biggest source for healthcare sector workers compensation claims revolves around patient handling.

"Workers compensation is in every industry but because of the unique exposure of healthcare workers you don't have other environments with patient handling," Posey says.

"I did the research and some lifting injuries and patient handling injuries can be more costly than some of the injuries you see in the construction and manufacturing industries. We realized from the survey that that was the No. 1 issue of the risk managers. We looked and 25% of the claims were attributed to some sort of patient handling risk. It is a considered a top concern and that concern is warranted."

Posey says risk managers in healthcare settings cannot simply assume that their workers are using patient lifting devices. "We are hearing about some of the pushback where ‘it is so cumbersome to use it' or ‘it's not where I need it to be.'"

"Risk managers want to know ‘are my employees using this?' They have this lifting device available. It's assumed that it is being used, but is that the case? The report was interesting in that risk managers need to dig a little deeper on their own to see how it is working in their facility."

Posey says she was surprised to learn that two-thirds of the survey respondents either do not have a return-to-work program or a way to test the effectiveness of their return-to-work program.

"Without a measure of efficiency and effectiveness, the health and productivity of the workforce is suffering," she says. "It has been illustrated time and again that return-to-work programs keep business and premium costs down as well as benefit injured workers. It's a win-win for both the healthcare system and the injured worker."

"If someone is injured on the job bring them back on light duty and into work rather than just continue to pay out indemnity as they sit home and recuperate," she says. "Bring them back to work and put them on light duty as they continue to recover."

While claims frequency has declined, claims severity including medical, indemnity and expense costs, has been steadily increasing, and projected to continue at a rate of 2% per year. Posey says the increase is linked primarily to outside influences such as the weak economy that has made it more expensive to close outstanding workers compensation claims.