Tetherless ergonomics workstation to assess nurses' physical workload in a clinical setting.

Nurses are at risk of physical injury when moving immobile patients. This paper describes the development and testing of a tetherless ergonomics workstation that is suitable for studying nurses' physical workload in a clinical setting. The workstation uses wearable sensors to record multiple channels of body orientation and muscle activity and wirelessly transmits them to a base station laptop computer for display, storage, and analysis.

Effect of loss control service on reported injury incidence.

Introduction: A retrospective analysis evaluated the effectiveness of an insurance carrier's flexible loss control service strategy in reducing workers' compensation policyholders' reported injury and illness claims.

Objectives: To assess the effects of a loss control service strategy on workers' compensation claim frequency rates, on medical-only claim rates, on severity-claim rates, and on claim cost among a group of California employers.

Methods: Eighty-two small- and medium-sized companies with workers' compensation policies expiring in 1999 were randomly selected from a population of policyholders assigned to loss control consultants for two or more years.