Burden of medical cost of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among hospital workers: From 7 years Workers' Compensation data

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are a leading workplace injury in the healthcare industry. Economic burden of MSD among hospital workers was investigated using Workers' Compensation (WC) claims. MSD were identified using reported ICD-9 codes from institutional WC data (2003-2009). Only medical cost reimbursed claims were included. Zero-truncated negative binomial regression was used to evaluate determinants of medical cost for MSD. Among 3,452 claims, 76% were MSD. WC reimbursed 3.7 times (median $1571) more medical cost to MSD than non-MSD (median $428). Older age ($3000, ≥ 60 years old), females ($2157), nursing aides/medical technicians ($2637), working in homecare/nursing home ($2692), and working the evening shift ($2934) showed the highest median medical costs among MSD claims. Injury sites associated with highest cost were knee ($2860) and dislocation of discs ($4224); pushing ($1810) was the activity associated with highest cost. From multivariable analysis, workers ≥ 60 years old incurred twice (IRR=2.1, CI=1.6-2.8) compared to < 30 years old, followed by nursing aide (IRR=1.8, CI=1.4-2.0) compared to nurses, women (IRR=1.5, CI=1.3-1.7) compared to men, and evening shift (IRR=1.3, CI=1.1-1.5) compared to day shift. Non-MSD did not show the same relationships with the factors listed above. Detailed work characteristics among nursing aides, women, and evening shift workers should be evaluated. Aging is often treated as a general risk factor for all health problems including MSD; in our workforce we found that aging did not show a significant association with non-MSD claims. Special attention and prevention efforts should be made for MSD in the aging workforce.