Tamara James, MA, CPE, CSPHP

Ms. Tamara James is the Ergonomics Division Director at Duke University and Health System.  The Division is responsible for hazard evaluation and training of over forty-five thousand employees involved in every aspect of a medical and teaching institution.  Ms. James is a certified professional ergonomist and a certified safe patient handling professional who received a master's degree in Human Factors Engineering from George Mason University in Virginia.  Her bachelor's degree is in Industrial Engineering from the University of Iowa. 
 
Ms. James is a faculty member (Assistant Professor) in Community and Family Medicine.  She started the ergonomics program at Duke over 20 years ago and developed and implemented Duke’s safe patient handling (SPH) program nearly 12 years ago.  In 2005 Duke was awarded the Audrey Nelson Best Practices award for Safe Patient Handling at the National Safe Patient Handling and Movement conference.  She served on the board of directors for the Association of Safe Patient Handling Professionals (ASPHP) from 2012-2014.  She has assisted numerous healthcare organizations with developing safe patient handling programs and provided assistance to organizations with ineffective SPH programs.  She has also published over 35 peer-reviewed articles in ergonomics-related journals.