Workplace injuries in the Australian allied health workforce.

Conclusions Mechanism of injury, both physical and psychosocial, were identified. Prosthetists/orthotists are at the highest risk of workplace injury of all allied health professions. This suggests the need for further investigation and development of appropriately targeted injury prevention programs for each allied health profession.What is known about this topic? Retention of allied health professionals is a significant issue, with workplace injuries identified as one contributing factor to this problem. Healthcare workers are potentially at high risk of injury as they are exposed to a range of physical and psychosocial hazards in their workplace.What does this paper add? This paper is the first to report on serious injuries, minimum 5 days absence from work, from Australian Workers' Compensation data, across a range of allied health professions. Various allied health professions were examined to identify the number, mechanism and cost of serious workplace injuries finding there is an average of 500 serious claims per year at a cost of A$14million. Prosthetists/orthotists were identified as having the highest proportion of claims per workforce population.What are the implications for practitioners? These results suggest highly varied injury rates across allied health professions. Compensation data does not enable accurate identification of causal factors. Further work is required to identify relevant causal factors so that targeted risk reduction strategies can be developed...
Source: Australian Health Review - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research