-
Traditional wisdom rightly holds that the longer injured employees stay out, the harder it is to get them back to work. A light-duty transition approach sounds reasonable, but can be difficult in reality. It's just one issue in the surprisingly complex but important process of navigating a safe return to work for the injured employee.
-
Almost three in four (71%) of hospital-based health care workers received their flu vaccine last year, showing a sustained commitment to vaccination even after the pandemic subsided, according to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
-
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) contains provisions for offering financial incentives for wellness participation in workplaces, which is good news for occupational health. However, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society have created a coalition to persuade federal regulators to prohibit financial incentives for Health Risk Assessments when family history items are involved.
-
The flu vaccine is very effective for older children and adults, aged 10 to 49 years, but may be less effective than believed for the population overall, according to two recent studies.
-
Companies looking to cut costs may take one look at an occupational health program that isn't getting results and decide to cut their losses. Before things get to that point, get some feedback from employees about the program.
-
Hospitals geared up for their annual influenza immunization campaigns this fall with a greater emphasis on mandatory policies to achieve the highest possible coverage of employees. An advisory from the American Hospital Association gave a push toward mandatory vaccination of health care workers.
-
More and more hospitals are adopting a policy that mandates influenza immunization for their employees with patient safety as the primary rationale. But some ethical questions linger:
-
In 2007, Omaha, NE-based Union Pacific conducted a retrospective analysis to examine the relationship between employees' health status and injury occurrences. Data were matched for employees in various departments who completed a voluntary health risk appraisal and experienced an injury during a defined period of time.
-
The near future of health promotion and illness prevention programs is relatively clear in one aspect: In large part, they will be based on metrics such as body mass index and nicotine levels.
-
Often, safety hazards are "hiding in plain sight" in workplaces and not reported, acted on or corrected. One reason is that employees are inundated on a daily basis with all kinds of information, both at work and at home.
