OSHA must no longer delay in providing direction to their inspectors on urging healthcare employers to purchase these life-saving safer needle technologies. OSHA must also inform the healthcare community that the Congress recommends that employers record all potentially contaminated needlestick injuries. Patient Lifting Injuries . Hospitals and nursing homes experience a higher number of occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work from back injuries than any other industry. By occupation, nurses' aides report a greater percentage of their injuries as back injuries than any other job title.
Back injuries continue to take a huge economic and personal toll within the health care sector.
Yet the healthcare industry has been slow to implement ergonomic programs which have been shown to dramatically reduce both injury rates and workers compensation premiums. OSHA must proceed expeditiously with the promulgation of an OSHA ergonomics standard. Without such a standard, healthcare workers will continue to needlessly suffer from crippling back injuries. Assaults on Workers. BLS statistics indicate that the healthcare sector also leads all other industry sectors in incidents of non-fatal workplace assaults.