Cape Fear Valley Health System Mobile Integrated Health is based in Fayetteville, North Carolina and has a mission to provide exceptional healthcare for all their patients. But Cape Fear Valley does much more than that; their commitment to looking after their 165 paramedics and EMTs is remarkable.
After taking up the position of Chief at Cape Fear Valley’s, Cumberland County EMS, David Grovdahl, an experienced EMS professional, worked quickly to assess the health of his team. His key objective was to build a well-equipped and prepared staff, but with the service recording 4-8 musculoskeletal injuries every month it became clear very quickly action was required to improve safety for the staff.
Injury related lost time was costing the Service on average $18,000 per injury, with annual costs escalating to in excess of $300K. In addition, with so many workers off injured at any one time, it meant that there were occasions when the service could not put all their trucks on the road.
The situation was not a surprise to Chief Grovdahl, who had encountered a similar position in his previous role with a governmental based EMS system. Here, after researching the best assistive equipment to support workers when moving and handling patients, he placed lifting cushions on ambulances and reduced injury rates by 50%.
In the Fall of 2021, Chief Grovdahl made the decision to put ELKs (Emergency Lifting Cushions) on the four quick response vehicles at Cape Fear Valley. ELKs can be utilized for fallers weighing up to 1,000 lbs. and the vehicles became the first choice when responding to lift assist calls. If an ambulance is deployed to a lift assist situation but an ELK is the better solution for both the patient and EMT or Paramedic, the protocol has become that they call for support from the quick response team.
In the last couple of months Chief Grovdahl has already seen injury rates reduce to just 2 a month, a significant improvement on previous rates.
Chief Grovdahl says, “When I started out working in EMS 22 years ago, I was told I would be lucky to survive 5 years without picking up a career shortening back injury.
“I’ve always been particularly careful to protect my physical health and we’ve seen some great improvements in lifting techniques in that time, but using assistive equipment is vital for the long-term health and wellbeing of our Paramedics and EMT’s.
“EMS is a rewarding career but professionalizing the way we work for the greater good of our patients and staff must be a priority if we are to attract the best people into the industry.”
The use of assistive lifting devices can reduce the risk of back injury among health care workers (D’Arcy et al., 2012; Andersen et al., 2014) and Chief Grovdahl’s team at Cape Fear Valley are seeing this for themselves firsthand.
