Field Observation of Hospital Food Service Workers and the Relationship between Customer Demand and Biomechanical Stress: A Case Study

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONS

Motion analysis of three workers at a large hospital kitchen was conducted using video recordings as part of this case study. Workers were observed during both a high-demand period and a low-demand period to evaluate their exposure to physical risk factors for work-related musculoskeletal disorders. On average, workers’ reaching posture did not change significantly with customer demand. However, recovery time decreased by 18% and hand activity level (HAL) increased by 27% when customer demand increased. On an individual basis, the only worker whose work pace was constrained by processing (cooking) time and the availability of materials to complete the tasks had the most recovery time and did not show an increase in HAL even with an increase in demand. These results suggest the importance of designing tasks that are paced externally (e.g., cooking time) in a self-paced operation to limit the reduction in recovery time and increase in HAL as demand increases.

Keywords:

• Hand activity level
• recovery time
• field observation
• reaching posture
• customer demand
• work pace

Conflict of Interest

The authors do not have any conflict of interest to report.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported with funds from the NIOSH Pilot Project Research Training Program (PPRTP) and the NIH grants 5T42OH008455-08, 2T42OH008455-09, and 5T42OH008455-10