Safer transfers lead to fewer patient injuries, workers’ comp claims

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Perry Lutheran Home Main Campus Director of Nursing Lori Gilbert, left, assisted Chris Canton of Argent in demonstrating safe transfer techniques to the staff of the care facility.

Staff members of the Perry Lutheran Home Main Campus last week participated in a program designed to reduce the risk of injury both to patients and workers and to lower the number of workers’ compensation claims.

Chris Canton, loss control consultant with Argent, a workers’ compensation insurance company, taught the hour-long program on techniques for safely transferring residents from bed to chair, chair to bed, bed to bed and so forth.

“Not only are transfers a dangerous time for residents, but it’s also a dangerous time for staff that are working,” Canton said. “By educating the staff on proper techniques and processes, we’re able to keep the residents safer as well as keep the staff safe, so it’s kind of a win-win for everybody.”

Canton was assisted by Perry Lutheran Home Main Campus Director of Nursing Lori Gilbert. They demonstrated a number of safety devices, including a slide sheet, “a special sheet that’s super slick so that when people need to be scooted up in bed or scooted up in a chair, it reduces the friction to the point where someone can be moved with minimal effort,” Canton said.

He said the Perry Lutheran Home staff were were won over by the slide sheet.

“The staff was very skeptical,” he said, “because they hadn’t really seen that before, and they thought it would be a lot of work just to get it into place, but it’s such a great tool to use to boost people up that they were really excited about that.”

Canton says he does about 40 loss-control presentations annually, working out of his Omaha office.

“In the nursing-care environment, assisting residents is one of the top losses for all of healthcare,” Canton said. “It’s staggering the number of injuries that occur in healthcare versus all other industries, especially when you look at lost days and frequency of injuries.”

According to the company’s website, “Argent is a monoline workers’ compensation provider specializing in high-touch loss control service and high levels of claims communication and expertise.” They assist businesses “who seek insurance solutions to short- and long-term costs of workers’ compensation.”

Argent is based in Wisconsin but has clients in Iowa and eastern Nebraska as well.

“We certainly like helping the care providers provide safer environments for the residents. That’s really what it’s all about at the end of the day,” Canton said.

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