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You probably know, more than anybody else in the workplace, which workers have the greatest potential for positive health changes, says Dawn Stone, RN, a nurse practitioner and former occupational health nurse at Miller's Brewing Company, University of California Los Angeles' Occupational Health Facility and Northrop.
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If you only count the musculoskeletal injuries reported in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Form 300, Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, you may be left with insufficient evidence that a prevention program is justified.
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It's highly unlikely that a costly piece of machinery would get absolutely no maintenance for years in your workplace. This is what's happening to employees who are exposed over time to risk factors for musculoskeletal diseases, warns Susan Murphey, BS, CECD, president of Essential WorkWellness in Shoreline, WA.
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All signs in health care reform point to preventive incentives. Paul Papanek, MD, MPH, chairman of the board for the San Francisco, CA-based Western Occupational Environmental Medical Association and former chief of the occupational health service for the Kaiser on the Job Program in Los Angeles, expects to see these changes in occupational health as a result of health care reform:
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Paramedics arrive with a man you recognize instantly from his many previous visits to your ED, always intoxicated. You learn that his vital signs are stable, and he was found on the ground by bystanders, says Tia Valentine, RN, CEN, clinical nurse educator for the ED at University of California-San Diego Medical Center.
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A 63-year-old construction worker came to the ED at Jacobi Medical Center in Bronx, NY, with difficulty swallowing, and reported losing 40 pounds in the previous six months.
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Adrienne Jones, RN, an ED nurse at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR, says that ED nurses used to see about five to 10 mental-health patients a day, but are now seeing twice as many.
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Editor's Note: This is a two-part series on medication safety for inpatients being held in the ED. This month, we give strategies to avoid missed dosages; next month, we'll cover how ED nurses can reduce errors with inpatient medications.
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Smoking, lung diseases, and chest X-ray abnormalities may result in your ED patient being diagnosed with bronchitis, flu, pleurisy, costochondritis, and upper respiratory infection, when he or she actually has pneumonia, says Carrie April, RN, BSN, an ED nurse at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, MO.
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"Normal-looking" asthma patients, whose condition is poorly controlled with treatment, or patients who are not compliant with treatment, may show up in your ED after weeks of deteriorating gradually, warns Anissa Washington, RN, BSN, ED nurse at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, MO.
