System Safety in Healthcare

Reducing Work-Related Risks for Healthcare Workers is Bound to Improve Patient Safety

Authors

  • Dev Raheja
  • Maria C. Escano, M.D.

Keywords:

healthcare, patient safety, nursing, fatigue, depression

Abstract

Nursing ranks among the worst occupations in terms of work-related injuries. Studies have shown that in a given year, nearly half of all nurses will have struggled with lower back pain. When nurses suffer, so do their patients. The costs to hospitals are enormous. Researchers estimate that medication errors and patient falls that occurred as a result of nurses’ health issues incurred as much as $2 billion annually on the health care system. “We have money bleeding out the back door because we don’t have a healthy work force,” said Susan Letvak, an associate professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Author Biographies

Dev Raheja

Mr. Dev Raheja has been a System Safety and System Reliability Engineering consultant for over 25 years. His range of consulting encompasses transportation systems, electric power systems, high tech industry, aerospace, defense systems, medical systems, and consumer products. He has conducted training in several countries including Sweden, Australia, Japan, UK, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Brazil, South Africa, and Canada. He has done training and consulting work with NASA, U.S. Army, GM, Boeing, Eaton, Nissan Aerospace, Litton, General Dynamics, ITT, BAE Systems, Lockheed-Martin, Harley-Davidson, and United Technologies.

Prior to consulting, Mr. Raheja worked at General Electric, Cooper Industries, and at Booz-Allen & Hamilton. He is the author of several books including Assurance Technologies Principles and Practices (Second Edition, Wiley 2006), and Design for Reliability (Wiley, 2012). A Fellow of the System Safety Society, he has a received Scientific Achievement Award and the Educator-of the-Year Award from the society.

Mr. Raheja serves on the Patient and Families Advisory Council at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a patient safety advocate. He is Associate Editor for Healthcare Safety for The Journal of System Safety and an Associate Professor at University of Maryland where he teaches the “Design For Reliability” course which includes design for safety and trustworthiness.

Maria C. Escano, M.D.

Dr. Maria C. Escano completed her medical degree at University of Miami School of Medicine. She received her post-graduate training at Columbia University/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. She completed her advanced trauma surgery fellowship at R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland.

She has been a regular contributor to scholarly journals for many years and has presented across the country on various topics advocating systems and patient safety initiatives. Dr. Escano is also an extensive traveler, having forged friendships across six continents.

References

Chen, Pauline,W., M.D. "When It's the Nurse Who Needs Looking After," The New York Times, July 5, 2012, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/when-its-the-nurse-who-needs-looking-after/?php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0.

MacDonald, Ilene. "Healthcare worker fatigue contributes to 1,600 patient safety events in Pennsylvania," Fierce-Healthcare Website, June 5, 2014, http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/healthcare-worker-fatigue-contributes-1600-patient-safety-events-pennsylvan/2014-06-05.

Dubeck, Deborah, R.N. "Healthcare Worker Fatigue: Current Strategies for Prevention," Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory, June 2014, http://patientsafetyauthority.org/ADVISORIES/AdvisoryLibrary/2014/Jun;11(2)/Pages/53.aspx.

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. "What are the most important recommendations in patient handling?", accessed June 24, 2014 from https://osha.europa.eu/en/faq/how-can-musculoskeletal-disorders-inhealth-care-be-prevented?full=1.

Circadian 24/7 Work Force Solutions. "Nursing and Health Care - Managing Fatigue," accessed June 12, 2014 from http://www.circadian.com/247-industries/health-care.html.

Pomerance Berl, Rachel. "How to Keep Your Loved One Safe in the Hospital," U.S. News Health and Wellness, accessed March 25, 2013 from http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2013/03/25/how-to-keep-your-loved-one-safe-in-the-hospital.

Gupta, Sanjay, M.D., How companies and employees can address the condition's toll on mental health and productivity, Everyday Health website, accessed on June 12, 2014 from http://www.everydayhealth.com/healthreport/major-depression-resource-center/sanjay-gupta-depression-in-the-workplace.aspx.

Healthcare

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Published

2014-10-01

How to Cite

Raheja, D., & Escano, M. (2014). System Safety in Healthcare: Reducing Work-Related Risks for Healthcare Workers is Bound to Improve Patient Safety. Journal of System Safety, 50(3), 10–11. Retrieved from https://jsystemsafety.com/index.php/jss/article/view/178

Issue

Vol. 50 No. 3 (2014): Selling the Need for Safety

Section

Columns and Perspectives

Categories

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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