March 13, 2015 – Chronic Injury

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Anchor lead:  Nurses get sidelined by chronic injury quite often, Elizabeth Tracey reports

The daily grind of working on your feet, lifting people who can’t help themselves and a host of other tasks frequently result in chronic injury for nurses, recent studies reveal.  Patricia Davidson, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, says the situation needs regulation.

Davidson: There’s a need to establish and maintain protocols for using devices for moving patients and for just being mindful of our physical activity. The other really important thing that we have to think about as the nursing workforce ages is that we have many nurses who are living with chronic conditions and really undertaking a very physically demanding job.  It’s important from that study to really think about we have to give nurses permission to look after their own health, we have to make sure that our work environments are safe.   :32

Davidson says nurses must be encouraged to speak up when practices should be improved and not feel like malcontents.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.