Rescuing the Rescue Workers
The job of firefighters and paramedics is backbreaking— sometimes literally, considering how often they carry patients up and down stairs and shift them onto backboards from beds in their homes to ambulance stretchers and then to gurneys once they reach the hospital.
One College of Engineering professor is part of an interdisciplinary team focused on finding ergonomic solutions for these emergency workers— and bringing some to market.
“It’s the repetitive wear and tear on the body that we were going after,” Lavender says.
At any given time, almost 10 percent of the emergency medical technicians and paramedics in the United States miss work because of injuries and illnesses they suffer on the job, new research suggests.
“There’s no doubt many of these types of injuries occur among people who often have to rely on their backs to do something. They need to make something happen fast and can’t wait for help, so they put themselves into positions they shouldn’t,” says John “Mac” Crawford, assistant professor of environmental health sciences in Ohio State’s College of Public Health, who also studies the health of these workers.
Supported by $800,000 in funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Lavender’s team designed ergonomic equipment that would reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders. By involving the emergency medical service workers in the design process through surveys, focus groups and task simulations, they came up with solutions that were not only ergonomic but also practical.
One of the products they developed is a low-friction board that the EMS workers can place under their patients to facilitate sliding, rather than lifting, them from bed to stretcher to gurney. The board can be folded and stored under the stretcher mattress. A second product is a one-size-fits-all strap that wraps around a seated patient’s back and legs to help the EMS worker grasp and carry the patient for transfer to rescue equipment more securely and with less effort.
Their next step: finding a manufacturer to take the concepts to the commercialization stage.
The team connected with Livingston Products, a Buffalo Grove, Ill., company, to meet that challenge.
“Both of these products can really provide the capability of reducing injury on the paramedics’ backs,” says Troy Livingston, president of Livingston Products. His company did further research, again working with the emergency workers, to engineer and manufacture the products, eventually namedthe GlideBoard and CarryStrap.
The industry/university collaboration brought results that neither the researchers nor Livingston Products could have easily realized on their own.
“The researchers presented the problem to us in thorough definition, which eliminated probably a year’s worth of research by our company,” Livingston says, adding that the academic team also helped his company write successful requests for business funding.
Having done all the pilot work behind the products, Lavender finds it rewarding to see the products used by the EMS workers.
“In ergonomics, we’re trying to help people solve problems that are creating injuries,” Lavender says. “We’re actually coming up with solutions and getting to the point where we can get the solutions into their hands. I think that’s great.”
Ohio State and the University of Illinois set up a“know-how license” for the project, which is an agreement to transfer the knowledge to Livingston Products. The company will manufacture and sell the products and return royalties to each university, says Ryan Zinn, a senior technology licensing associate with Ohio State’s Office of TechnologyLicensing and Commercialization.
“Technology transfer can take many forms: patents, copyrights, know-how and transferring the information from the research through the education of students who enter the workforce or through the public dissemination of information,” Zinn explains. “These products are going to be very helpfulin trying to help those who need assistance in being transported for medical reasons. We’re benefiting society in that way.”
In the next stage of the research, Lavender says, his team is examining ways to encourage EMS personnel to adopt the new developments.
“Here we think we have solutions to their problems,” he says, “but we want to follow that up and see what we can do so people buy into it and use the products.”
