The Federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced that due to the continued high injury rates among healthcare workers, they would be initiating a national emphasis program – the emphasis being inspections targeting nursing homes and other residential care facilities. OSHA is not saying when the targeted inspections will start other than to indicate that it will be “within the coming months.”
Interestingly, OSHA already had a site-specific targeting program and approximately 500 nursing homes were inspected in 2011 because of their above-average number of reported work injuries. So, it is unclear how this new “National Emphasis Program” changes what has already been in place. What is clear is that OSHA believes that nursing home work injuries occur too frequently and at too high of a severity to avoid targeted inspection.
According to statistics published by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the Nonfatal Occupational Injuries and Illnesses Requiring Days Away From Work, 2010, report in November 2011, 489 out of every 10,000 employees working as nursing aides, orderlies and attendants sustained injuries that resulted in lost time from work in 2010. The average rate for all workers in all industries was 118, with bus drivers and law enforcement officers being the only professions with higher rates of loss-time injuries. The BLS report shows that healthcare workers’ most common injuries were muscle sprains, strains and tears (56%) and the most common causes of injuries were lifting/overexertion (49%) and falls (18%).
In some ways, Minnesota nursing homes may be better prepared to weather the targeted inspections. Minnesota’s state agency (MNOSH) already goes beyond Federal OSHA regulations by having implemented Safe Patient Handling (SPH) requirements for healthcare facilities, including nursing homes. The SPH Statute, Minn. Stat. § 182.6553 was enacted in 2008 and required healthcare facilities to have a SPH program operational by July 1, 2011. Consequently, Minnesota healthcare facilities must already have written policies and procedures on safe patient handling, an active committee that identifies, evaluates, addresses and resolves SPH issues, proper equipment, training, assessment tools and methods for properly recording and reporting on SPH issues.
For many nursing homes, this “National Emphasis Program” will not translate into a greater chance of citation for violations. However, it may make it more likely that the new year will bring a visit from a MNOSH inspector.