NPSF Report Offers Strategies to Improve Healthcare Worker Safety

To create a safe and supportive work environment, healthcare organizations must become effective, high-reliability organizations characterized by continuous learning, improvement, teamwork, and transparency, states Through the Eyes of the Workforce: Creating Joy, Meaning, and Safer Health Care, a new report from the Lucian Leape Institute at the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF). According to the report, the prevalence of physical harm experienced by healthcare workers is much higher than in other industries. Research has shown that as many as a third of nurses experience a back or musculoskeletal injury in a given year, and many are inadequately protected from bloodborne pathogens.