PREDICTING RISK OF EMPLOYEE INJURY IN A PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL

Abstract

PURPOSE

Healthcare has one of the highest rates of non-fatal occupational injury as compared to other industries. Yet, evaluation of risk determinants and prediction algorithms in hospital settings remains limited.

METHODS

This study examines risk factors for employee injuries in a large pediatric hospital and evaluates prediction algorithms using hospital surveillance data, incident reports, and work unit measures such as patient density and employee workload. We employed multiple statistical models and machine learning tools, including logistic regression (LR), random forest (RF), penalized logistic regression (PLR), Naïve Bayes, neural network (NN), XGBoost (XG), and mixed-effects logistic regression (GLMER) to predict employee injury risk for specific time periods. We used cross-validation and receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curve analyses to assess model performance.

RESULTS

GLMER, LR, and PLR were superior to other models, with higher AUC values (∼0.76), indicating good discrimination ability, though accuracy and specificity varied across models. RF showed high accuracy and specificity and comparable AUC with the top performing models. Further analyses using GLMER revealed variability in employee injury risk across months, days, and hospital units, identifying peaks on Tuesdays and Saturdays and in April and July, with lows in March and June.

CONCLUSION

Our findings highlight the significance of monitoring specific risk factors within pediatric hospital settings and pairing them with appropriate predictive algorithms to effectively predict and mitigate employee injuries. These insights indicate that continuous monitoring may help enhance employee safety. Future work should evaluate additional predictors that may be obtained from individual hospital units, which may inform targeted prevention strategies.