Employee safety measures in hospitals represent a culture of caring, an ability to facilitate collaboration between departments and attention to detail. They also support superior patient safety.
Because of the medical severity of our patients, employees providing patient care in our long-term acute care hospital engage in continual and intense movement and activity. This leads to higher potential for accidents. Common injuries include slips, trips and falls and muscle strains due to the rigor of the job.
An index called the DART rate is a national measure designed by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to establish and monitor per-industry standards for employee safety. DART stands for “Days Away, Restrictions and Transfers.” It describes the number of injuries and illnesses, per 100 full-time employees during a given time frame, that were severe enough to result in days away from work, restricted work activity and/or job transfers to another function.
There is no DART rate standard established for long-term acute care hospitals. We compare to the published standard for acute care hospitals. The national average for acute care hospitals was 4.5 in 2005, which is the most recent data.
For fiscal year 2007, RML had a DART rate of 4.7. For fiscal year-to-date 2008, RML Specialty Hospital has a DART rate of 3.1, representing nearly a 25 percent improvement over the last fiscal year.
