The American Nurses Association (ANA) has started a Safe Patient Handling (SPH) Working Group for the purpose of developing multidisciplinary national SPH standards.  On June 29th they brought together representatives from 8 professional associations, 2 from large healthcare systems, 2 from insurance companies, the Veterans Health Administration (VA), consultants, equipment/services providers and others for a full-day meeting to start the process.  The goal is to develop standards that are:

• Multidisciplinary/interprofessional across a variety of settings
• Realistic and attainable, but raising the bar
• Evidence based and outcomes focused
• Ready to be incorporated into practices, policies, procedures, and regulation
• Disseminated with toolkits, model language, and other resources

Approximately 25 people participated either onsite or remotely.  The ASPHP was well-represented with 6 Board members and 4 general members participating.  Guy Fragala, an ASPHP Advisor also attended.  Mary Matz, National Program Manager – Patient Care Ergonomics for the VA, was asked to Chair the overall process.  Mary is on the ASPHP Board.  This meeting resulted in the development of 10 sub-groups to work on individual standards.  ASPHP Board members/general members are the Chairs or Co-Chairs of 5 of these sub-groups.

These standards should help the ASPHP to meet its mission:  “To improve the safety of caregivers and their patients by advancing the science and practice of safe patient handling”.

We thank the ANA for their leadership in this effort and will work whole-heartedly to bring these standards to fruition!