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‘Lift Team’ formed to prevent nurse injury by Dick Peterson Public Relations Nurses! Need a lift? Page 17196. That number will get you Heide Zeiser and Doug Caldwell, MUSC's newly formed Lift Team. In business for little more than a week now, they pride themselves in quick response, a short turn-around time, and a service that frees nurses to do what they do best—patient care. Heidi Zeister and Doug Caldwell demonstrate the Hoyer lift in a patient transfer from a wheelchair to bed. “Every month we've had injuries related to lifting and moving patients,” said Hospital Injuries Committee member Erica Rouvalis. She credits the e-mail circulation of a newspaper article about a lift team at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle for planting the idea to try it here. “Six months after the program was implemented,” reads the article, “back injuries to nursing staff dropped by 63 percent during shifts when the lift team was on duty, and work days lost due to injuries from patient transfers fell 86 percent. Nurses also report having more time to devote to patient care.” And get this: “The technique has been so successful that the hospital is now using the lift team as a recruiting tactic in hiring nursing staff,” according to the article. Rouvalis calls it a pilot project for the time being. Scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, the team will be evaluated for cost savings, risk reduction, and for its retention and recruitment value.  “We're the only hospital in the area with a lift team,” she said, adding that success may lead to additional hours of service. Zeiser and Caldwell say they don't mind the scrutiny. They have already seen the value in what they do, both in the actual lifts and in demonstrating lift equipment already available on each floor, but not always familiar to staff.   Their equipment ranges from simple devices such as a Gortex sheet and a transfer board to the hydraulically operated Hoyer lift. “All we need to know is the nursing unit, patient room number and the name of the person making the request, and we'll be there,” Zeiser said.