Caring for Your Workforce - A Provider Spotlight

Josh Levinson has been a Physical Therapist with Briotix Health for more than 4.5 years. Over that time, he has seen a wide range of client discomforts, each requiring their own care and treatment plan. However, recently Josh had to get creative to find a solution for a high-risk task that was causing discomfort for employees.

A Very Long Day Illustrates an Ergonomic Problem

One day, a client laboratory was understaffed resulting in one employee performing the work of three employees for more than 10 hours. Her job task over those 10 hours was to manually uncap small glass vials under a biohazard hood to test for contaminates. Unfortunately, the vial caps had been previously overtightened, and she could not easily uncap them. After her shift, she developed severe neck, shoulder, wrist, and finger pain which resulted in medical intervention. Josh was contacted by the company’s Health Services to provide ergonomic support and subsequent physical therapy.

As part of the ergonomic support, Josh completed an ergonomic analysis of the job tasks associated with the employee’s role. Upon evaluation, it was determined the uncapping of the vials was a high-risk task for all employees. ​​​​​​​

Developing a Prevention Solution

As a first step in preventing future injuries, Josh proposed administrative controls including more rest, stretch breaks, and ensuring proper staffing. And while these controls were put into place, the ergonomic task was still deemed high risk. Josh then began exploring engineering controls. After some trial and error, an electric screwdriver with a socket was initially successful in reducing risk but ended up contaminating the samples, so it could not be used. Then, Josh had a unique idea.

Having just recently purchased a 3D printer for home use, Josh began exploring the idea of printing his own engineering control. He had seen previously published designs for printed bottle openers available online and realized he could make some modifications to work for the vial cap.

Using a simple computer-aided design program on his home computer, Josh was able to quickly develop several prototypes and print them using a special heated plastic. Each prototype took approximately 2.5 hours to print, and the material cost was approximately $2 per tool. Once all the prototypes were printed, Josh let his children play with the tools to test for durability and functionality. As a final step in the development phase, Josh tested the tools with onsite employees and made more revisions based on their feedback.

The final result - a small hand-held tool similar to plyers that has a round head with small teeth lining inside the head. Since the tool was plastic, it was designed for limited use and could easily be reprinted using onsite 3D printers. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

A Successful Implementation

The client site was extremely excited about implementing Josh’s new tool. With the printed engineering control, the ergonomic task was no longer deemed high risk and the employee’s discomfort was completely resolved! With the successful outcomes associated with the tool use, company management mandated the tool be used in this lab by everyone.

Finding innovative solutions for our clients is something Briotix Health and our providers pride themselves on. Our mission is to care for your workers and build a healthier workplace. With highly-skilled, creative, dedicated providers like Josh, we know we will accomplish this goal.