Oct 8, 2025 – Reducing Radiologic Team Member Injuries with Minimal Lift Equipment

Reducing Radiologic Team Member Injuries with Minimal Lift Equipment
Presented by Leslie Smith Wood, DPT, CSCS, AOEAS and Anthony Calise RT(R), BBA

Live and recorded on Oct 8, 2025 from 2 PM – 3 PM Eastern FREE to ASPHP Members

Overview

The presentation will review the push pull data we have conducted at the University of Virginia Health System on placing imaging plates/detectors under patients for chest, pelvic and abdominal films. We will review and present graphs of our push pull data on wrist forces produced when placing plates under inpatients at various speeds, on various surfaces, and with different levels of participation from the patient. We have done further testing to determine the best practices with our air friction reduction devices, and learned different strategies to reduce force needed to place a detector and make this task safer for our team members while working with complex and dependent patients. After following up on a team member injury and discovering a possible pressure injury, we took a deeper dive into the impact air could have on a patients’ skin and used pressure mapping results to make best practice recommendations to reduce the potential harm to our patients’ skin from a plate being placed underneath of them. Photographs of the pressure mapping and findings will be provided and learnings discussed. After learning how speed, surface, & amount of air, can impact the amount of force needed to place a plate under a patient, we decided to take our data collection to the next level and started looking at the patients’ weight and how that may impact our team members work demands. Our Radiology Team at UVA Medical Center has partnered with the Academic Engineering School to develop a prototype to measure the forces produced by the team member when placing the plate underneath of a patient over time (to 1/10 of a second). This prototype has provided valuable information along with pressure mapping about the techniques used to place pelvic films as we can see and trend the actual time it takes to place a plate over time and not just peak force produced. We have used to prototype to conduct a study comparing patients of various weights (130lbs->300lbs) and Body Mass Indices (21-43) during plate placement for three different air settings (no air, 1 air supply, and 2 air supplies). As expected, the results showed that patients’ weight does impact the amount of force needed to place an imaging detector or plate, and there are actually two peaks in the forces produced while the plate is being placed.  We also discovered there are certain situations when it is best to use one versus two air supplies in regards to what impact it can have on the patients’ skin, and the amount of force the team members have to produce to successfully place a plate. We also sought and documented the patients’ feedback on how they felt with the plate being placed underneath of them with and without air. We asked them to rate whether or not they could feel the plate being placed and if so, was it painful. Using this feedback, pressure mapping, and force data we have developed guidelines to benefit not only our team members but the patients’ comfort and skin.  These newly discovered techniques with our air friction reduction devices helped reduce our radiologic team member injuries immensely. We will review our trended team member injury data over time and will also discuss special considerations for the Operating Room & portable imaging at the bedside.  We will also map out a timeline and discuss the training strategies we implemented in an acute care hospital to make this culture change necessary to aide in our continued efforts to reduce team member injuries. In addition to benefits of air friction reduction devices for plate placement, we will have a brief discussion of standing or upright films/imaging for high fall risk patients. We will show safe options to images those patients who cannot stand on their own vs who are able to stand but are at high risk of fall, placing themselves and our team members at risk for injury.

Objectives:

1. Identify at least three factors that can impact the force needed to place a radiologic detector under a patient
2. Describe the impact AFRD can have on reducing forces when placing a detector under a patient for imaging
3. Explain how patient participation can help reduce forces to place a detector under a patient
4. Discuss options for safely performing upright standing spine films for high fall risk patients

Meet the Speakers

Leslie Smith Wood has over 22 years of experience working in outpatient orthopedic clinics and acute inpatient hospital systems. She has served as a Clinician Level IV Physical Therapist at UVA Health System since 2010 and has been a member of the SPHM Team since 2019. She enjoys training staff on minimal lift equipment and educating team members on best practices to reduce injuries. Since 2021, she has also partnered with colleagues in radiology to help reduce their TMI.

Anthony has over 17 years of experience as a diagnostic radiographer within a level 1 trauma and academic medical center environment. He currently serves in the role of Diagnostic Imaging Manager. He has collaborated with PT, Nursing, and others to promote the use of minimal lift devices in order to reduce team member injuries for well over a decade.

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