The Bridgton Hospital employee injury prevention committee and the employee health coordinator were concerned about the increase in the number of back injuries by clinical staff members. The committee focused on two key areas of concern: the importance of moving patients on stretchers using two staff members and the use of the hover mat to move a patient from stretcher to bed or bed to stretcher.
Bridgton Hospital, like most hospitals, tends to rely on posted flyers and notices, and employee newsletters, to get messages out to staff. With that in mind, the commitee tried something different, and they found, far more effective.
The committee's initial request to the community relations office was to have staged photographs taken and a poster campaign around the hospital begun. The campaigns were titled 'It Takes Two' and 'Watch Your Back,' and photographs were taken using staff members as the models.
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While on the inpatient unit taking photographs, the community relations director, Pam Smith, noticed that staff had screensavers of photographs from the holiday employee party showing. Computers are, of course, in key locations at the nursing stations of the inpatient unit and the emergency department, and they are critical pieces of equipment used day in and day out. The 'good idea' light bulb went on in her head. She created a color slide show of the two staged 'Watch Your Back' and 'It Takes Two' photographs and added it to inpatient and emergency department computers as the screen saver. It was a hit! Staff gathered around to see their colleagues in the slide show and then they told other staff to come watch the show.
It's doubtful that posters posted around the facility where there is so much paper would have received as much attention among staff as the two slide shows. Besides, Hospital President/CEO, John Carlson, despises posters and flyers cluttering the hospital. The messages they sent were serious ones - but the method used was both creative and effective.
See "It Takes Two" (Windows Media Player)
See "Watch Your Back" (Windows Media Player)