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West Central Ohio Regional
Healthcare Alliance eNewsletter |
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TIP OF THE MONTH
How to Help Stop the Spread of Germs
To help stop the spread
of germs,
• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you
cough or sneeze.
• If you don't have a tissue, cough or sneeze into
your upper sleeve, not your hands.
• Put your used tissue in the waste basket.
Clean your hands after coughing or sneezing
• Wash with soap and water – wash for 15-20 seconds,
or
• Clean with alcohol-based hand cleaner
Germs can live on things such as doorknobs, desks
and tables for up to 2 hours or more - avoid
touching your eyes, nose or mouth! Stay home when
you are sick and check with a health care provider
when needed, and practice other good health habits.
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HOT TOPIC
Which Flu Vaccine: the shot or nasal spray
The new Flu virus H1N1 has hit our area. We need to
protect our family, especially the children, from
this new flu and ourselves. This flu passes from
person to person in similar way as the seasonal flu:
by coughing, sneezing, or touching contaminated
surfaces. Since health care workers are in the front
lines confronting the flu season they have priority
in receiving the vaccines against the H1N1influenza.
However, when the vaccines are available to the
general population it is important for all of us to
get immunized. Two vaccines have been developed. One
is an inactivated vaccine (containing killed virus).
It is given as a shot, usually in the arm. This
vaccine or TIV is approved for use among people 6
months of age or older, including healthy people and
those with chronic medical conditions (such as
asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), and pregnant
women.
The other is a different kind of vaccine, called the
nasal-spray flu vaccine (sometimes referred to as
LAIV for Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine or
FluMist®). The nasal-spray flu vaccine contains
attenuated (weakened) live viruses, and is
administered by nasal sprayer. It is approved for
use only among healthy people 2-49 years of age who
are not pregnant.
For more information about please visit the CDC
website www.cdc.gov/
-By Juan V. Torres, MD, MPH, Grand Lake Occupational
Medicine
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WCORHA UPDATE
Order your flu shots for the
Fall of 2010.
If you would like to be contacted in December to
reserve flu vaccines for next fall please email your
WCORHA Account Executive. Ami Boley,
abboley@health-partners.org or Dan Schroeder,
dfschroeder@health-partners.org
WORKSITE WELLNESS FOCUS GROUPS
WCORHA will be holding two focus group meetings that
will identify worksite wellness needs in order to
develop a strategic plan for service delivery. The
northern region meeting will be held on Friday,
November 20th from 11:30a – 1:00p. To sign up for
the meeting please call Dan Schroeder at
419-226-9185 The southern territory meeting will be
held Friday, December 4th from 11:30a – 1:00p. To
sign up for this meeting please call Ami Boley at
419-584-0398
Whether you have a worksite wellness program or are
interested in implementing a plan, please feel free
to attend. Your input is greatly appreciated. A
catered lunch will be provided.
Attendance be will limited, so please RSVP as soon as
possible, and no later than Tuesday, November 17,
2009 Tuesday, December 1, 2009, respectively.
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WELLNESS UPDATE
Workplace Culture Plays Critical Role in Health
A growing body of evidence indicates that
companies with a “culture of health” are more
likely to prosper than those that do not make a
sustained commitment to workforce health
improvement. However, many work environments are
not conducive to healthy lifestyle practices.
Meanwhile, studies show that about 25% of
individuals who attempt to modify their behavior
to improve their personal health without
external support are unsuccessful and 64% are
only moderately successful. These findings
suggest a need for a cultural shift in the
workplace, where employee health has a direct
impact on productivity and the bottom line,
according to Joseph Leutzinger, Ph.D., president
of the Academy of Health & Productivity Manage
and principal with Health Improvement Solutions,
Inc. Employers are also getting more adept at
making connections between workplace safety and
workforce health. For example, a growing number
of employers are using employee health risk
assessments (HRAs) to establish links between
health status and workplace accidents. For
instance, work-related injuries may be placed
into categories such as: remained at work no
restriction/job transfer; remained at work with
restriction; job transfer; lost work time; and
critical incident. The data may be further
stratified to create safety and health status
reports and develop intervention strategies for
specific work departments or company locations,
and for low-medium and high risk groups. “Health
is complex and behavior change is hard,” said
Dr. Leutzinger. Consequently, he advises
employers to adopt an operationalized,
integrated health management approach to ensure
individual and collective workplace wellness.
-Occupational Health Strategies, NAOHP, Volume
8, Issue 17
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OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE UPDATE
TRANSITIONAL WORK THERAPY
TRANSITIONAL WORK
What is Transitional Work?
Transitional Work is a return to work program, which
is time limited, focused on gradually increasing job
demands and work tasks toward a targeted job. This
allows an injured employee to either remain at work
or return to work sooner, hopefully to their
original job. Transitional Work Therapy uses actual
work tasks and equipment to condition the worker and
progresses towards return to full work duty.
Employers can request Transitional Work Therapy for
their injured workers to ensure a safe and focused
return to production.
Benefits of Transitional Work Therapy
Statistics support indirect costs are four times
greater than direct claim expense for a workplace
injury that becomes a lost-time claim. These costs
include decreased productivity, hiring and training
replacement expenses, overtime for loss of work,
legal bills, and loss of morale, business and
customer goodwill. The costs to injured workers are
even greater. Ergonomic risks can often be
identified and recommendations made to eliminate
further worker injury. The utilization of
an experienced industrial clinician helps identify
and stop malingering or symptom magnifying behaviors
of employees.
Transitional Work Services:
• Goal-driven program to safely and strategically
return an injured worker to a productive Job.
• Transitional work therapy allows a worker a
gradual transition back to their original job or
another targeted job under the supervision of a
qualified therapist who provides periodic on-site
monitoring and eliminates any guess work on the part
of the employer regarding return to work duties for
the worker.
• Transitional work therapy uses actual work tasks
and equipment to condition the worker and progress
tolerances and physical capabilities with the goal
of return to work full duty.
• Job evaluation/analysis/modification to job
demands and setup
• Formal Job Ergonomic studies as necessary.
• Progressive conditioning to strengthen the
employee’s physical capabilities
• Safe work practice training regarding body
mechanics/cumulative trauma to prevent re-injury
• On-Site Therapist coordinates return to work
program facilitating communication between
the worker, employer, physician, case manager, etc.
• Ensure job task progression and decreased time on
restricted duty
• Therapist visits the job site two to three times
per week usually one to two hours per visit.
-Robert J. Hibner, MS, PT, Director of
Rehabilitation, Mercer Health
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OSHA UPDATE
Record Kepping
Recordkeeping is focus of new
National Emphasis Program OSHA launched a National
Emphasis Program on recordkeeping determine the
accuracy of injury and illness data recorded by
employers.
The NEP involves inspecting
occupational injury and illness records prepared by
businesses and enforcing regulatory requirements
when employers are found to be under-recording
injuries and illnesses.
The complete Directive is
available for review on the OSHA website.
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