New NIOSH app aims to prevent injuries in workplace lifting

August 30th, 2017 by Dakota Software Staff

In an August 4 statement, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced the release of a health and safety app it developed which determines the composite lifting index, or CLI, for a number of lifting tasks. The CLI refers to a number that assesses the potential risk of injury for the particular lift at hand. A CLI value below 1.0 means there is a nominal, or small, risk of a healthy employee injuring themselves. As the numerical value increases past 1.0, so do the odds of injury occurring.

The app is called NLE Calc and can be used by employees in manufacturing, warehousing, health care, public safety and other industries that require staff to lift heavy or cumbersome objects during the workday.

Based on data the user inputs, the app determines a score for the task at hand and provides guidelines and recommendations on ways to complete the lift safely. The equations that compute the score were approved by the NIOSH ergonomists that created the formula in the original Manual for the Revised NIOSH Lifting Equation. That served as the official guideline to assess the safest possible method for single lifts for the previous 20 years, according to the press release.

NIOSH app provides automatic computation of a once manual process

The app also provides other key benefits, as mentioned on its official site, including raising employee job task awareness, providing guidelines for several manual lifting tasks and encouraging safe, preventative guidelines to ensure musculoskeletal health.

According to the NIOSH, work-related musculoskeletal disorders occurring in industries where lifting is common account for one in three work-related injuries leading to missed work days, and ultimately result in $45 to $54 billion annually in treatment and lost productivity. Repeated exposure to awkward positioning, vibration, and repetitive motion at the workplace puts them at greater risk of having a musculoskeletal related injury. The app is an effort to reduce the likelihood of an incident occurring.

"NLE Calc is a quick and simple way for a worker to assess their risk for injury before they manually lift an object," said Dr. John Howard, director of the NIOSH, in the press release. "The information workers used to find in a manual [Manual for the Revised NIOSH Lifting Equation] is now in their back pocket and can help prevent one of the most common, and costly, work-related injuries."

The app is available on both iOS and Android devices and can be found by searching "NLE Calc" in their respective app stores.