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Even in the dead of winter, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI, serves up freshly picked vegetables and sells produce in a hospital-based farmer's market. It is locally grown in a "hoop house" on the hospital's own farm.
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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.
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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:
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In its Prevention Strategies for Seasonal Influenza in Healthcare Settings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the following measures to avoid transmission from ill health care workers:
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★ Default non-select pediatric patient menus for children 2-18 to meet the American Heart Association guidelines. To be completed by Jan. 1, 2013
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In the first weeks of the H1N1 pandemic, a physician became ill at a Chicago hospital and tested positive for the virus. Then other health care workers became ill and tested positive an outbreak that began at a time when the virus was not widespread in the community.
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If the goal is universal influenza vaccination, the answer is mandatory vaccination.
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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.
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Employees are undoubtedly the best place to turn for solutions about safety concerns, but they often don't volunteer this information.
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OSHA offers the following examples as guidance on what to report on injury logs. (For more information go to: http://1.usa.gov/nFxelo)
