The good news is that there are many practical and proven ways to avoid these injuries. A supplemental issue of New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy offers a new free report that describes over 30 health hazards to hospital workers and over 150 ways to avoid them.
In Controlling Health Hazards to Hospital Workers: A Reference Guide, specialists in occupational medicine from the United States and India describe ways to control everything from anesthetic gases to X-rays.
Hazards addressed include lifting and other ergonomic hazards, communicable diseases, hazardous drugs, chemicals, radiation, violence, stress and shift work. The researchers have summarized the literature on controlling these hazards by engineering means such as ventilation, shielding, automation, and administrative changes in procedures.
Each section describes the hazard, the literature on controls and internet resources where the reader can find more information. There are also general tips about identifying hazards and setting priorities.
The Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the New York State Nurses Association have made this supplemental issue of New Solutions (Baywood Publishing) available for free in order to reach healthcare professionals and hospital workers around the world. “It will be great for hospitals to have all this information in one resource guide,” said Professor Somashekhar Nimbalkar, one of the authors. “We will be sure to send it around to every hospital in India.”
The report, Controlling Health Hazards to Hospital Workers: A Reference Guide, New Solutions, Vol. 23, Supplement, 2013 can be freely downloaded at: http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?id=j676v4ul5026
The report will also be posted on the web site of the New York State Nurses Association at www.nysna.org/HealthHazards.pdf
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
