-
About 73% of employers conduct criminal background checks on all job candidates, according to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, and another 19% of employers do so only for selected job candidates. They can be particularly important in healthcare when a job applicant must be trusted with vulnerable patients and data, but experts caution that background checks have limitations.
-
Reducing hazards is the key to a safe workplace. It means fewer injuries, workers' compensation claims, and absenteeism and a culture of safety. But with OSHA's emphasis on health care, it is also important to ask: How would OSHA view the health and safety program? Are you ready for an OSHA inspection?
-
A 70-year-old man waves a gun in the emergency department. A gunman shoots his estranged wife and her mother in an intensive care unit. An environmental services worker at a hospital shoots his ex-wife, also an employee, in the hospital garage.
-
Amid all the advances in electronic medical records software, there's been a setback in occupational health. Respond, which was purchased by Becton, Dickinson and Company in 2009 and renamed BD Protect, is being discontinued.
-
If information is power, then employee health professionals are about to get a lot more powerful.
-
As hospitals move rapidly toward an electronic medical record to improve patient care and coordination, employee health has a delicate task. Employee health can ride the wave to better use of technology but must still maintain employee confidentiality.
-
Many hospitals have banned smoking from their campuses, but exposure to smoke continues to cause health problems in the operating room.
-
Eleven years after Congress rescinded the ergonomics standard, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is preparing to wield its "general duty clause" powers to identify ergonomic hazards in health care.
-
Measles cases rose to their highest level in 15 years in 2011, yet another reminder to be on guard for the highly transmissible disease, public health authorities say.
-
In a directive for compliance officers, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration lays out the key areas of an ergonomics program for health care employers. This is what inspectors will look for:
