OHSAH’s Mental Health and Organizational Development department held a program evaluation training session for OHSAH researchers on 26 February 2008. Because every project at OHSAH is evaluated, evaluation is always a topic of interest, particularly to those involved in program implementation.

Participants learned valuable skills such as the use of logic models in evaluation, aspects to consider when creating an evaluation measure, and tracking the evaluation process. An especially useful aspect of the training was how to apply evaluation to real-world projects and how to make the concepts accessible to people who do not have a research background.

During the session, different teams were able to apply evaluation concepts to their current projects and brainstorm ideas with other groups, which reflects several of OHSAH’s values, including collaboration, teamwork and continuous learning.

Thank you to Dr. Elizabeth Smailes and her team for providing a stimulating and useful session!

OHSAH responds to many requests from all over the province, the country and even internationally. Individuals from different departments within OHSAH are responsible for responding to these requests, depending on the nature of the query.

OHSAH is currently working on streamlining the process for prioritizing such requests. As a first stage, OHSAH is examining the types of requests received and the types of responses delivered throughout the organization, to ensure that a template for providing best-practice information can be developed.

This will increase efficiency and will improve the quality of the responses. OHSAH is continually striving to improve the service it provides to the BC healthcare industry.

For almost 10 years, OHSAH has worked to make healthcare a healthier place to work. Thanks to the expertise, leadership and perspective of its bipartite Board of Directors and ongoing collaboration with its stakeholders, OHSAH continues to deliver research, evidence best-practices, knowledge transfer, education and training. OHSAH’s success to date is due largely to this unique structure.

At the OHSAH Board Retreat in October 2007, a new Governance structure was approved and has since been set in motion. Continuing its efforts to support OHSAH in meeting the priority needs of healthcare workers, the Board approved the following four Committees: Executive Committee; Program Committee; Research & Evaluation Committee; Data Sharing Committee. For full details of membership, purpose and duties for each of the Committees, please view the Governance Paper.

Representation from Board members on all of the Committees, ensuring a balance between employers and unions, reinforces the bipartite nature of OHSAH and will assist in spreading the workload evenly across Board members. This new structure is expected to refine the governing process at OHSAH and ensure that channels of communication are clear and efficient, for Board members and for OHSAH staff.

Are you wondering what to do about bedbugs?

What would you do if bedbugs, which had been brought in by clients, were taking up residence in the chairs of your waiting room and were invading office chairs as well? Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee (JOHSC) members recently attended an OHSAH Joint Committee Boot Camp training session where they learned to write a recommendation which, firstly, discussed why this is a health and safety issue and, secondly, proposed various options for getting rid of the bugs. The preferred option for dealing with a hazard is to eliminate it, so their recommendation was to replace the cushioned chairs with hard plastic chairs so that the bugs had no habitat. The next day, the Joint Committee members presented this recommendation to their employer and were delighted to have it accepted! This has provided great encouragement for them to tackle other problems as they now have the skills to analyze problems and present solutions.

OHSAH’s Healthcare Education and Learning Program (HELP) is planning now for our Spring Training, which runs from April to June, 2008. Bring your questions and concerns about health and safety issues at your worksite and learn basic committee roles, inspection and investigation skills and violence prevention strategies. Our 5 modules are focused on issues faced by Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committees, supervisors and frontline workers.

A tentative schedule has been drafted that will provide 4 to 5 days, filled with sessions of your choice, over a one week period in each Health Authority at several different locations. The courses available are:

Full day training modules:
Joint Committee Boot Camp
Hazard Risk & Inspections
Incident Investigation

Half day training modules:
Violence Prevention Planning
Prevention & Management of Aggressive Behaviour

For more details on course content, please see the descriptions on the OHSAH website at http://www.ohsah.bc.ca/EN/572/.

Check the registration part of our website to register for courses that are currently set up: http://kat.ohsah.bc.ca/workshopweb/.

You can also submit a training request online using our website’s training request form at: http://www.ohsah.bc.ca/EN/572/.

Watch the website for updates on specific training dates and contact us at train@ohsah.bc.ca with any questions.

Louis Pasteur, a 19th century scientist, said: “Chance favours the prepared mind.” Come to HELP’s training to build your skills in identifying and responding to health and safety concerns at your worksite!

Andrea Regimbal, OHSAH’s Senior Ergonomist, presented on the subject of building capacity in Joint OHS Committees (JOHSC) as part of OHSAH’s weekly Research in Progress speaker series.

JOHSCs have a duty under the Workers Compensation Act to "identify situations that may be unhealthy or unsafe for workers and to advise on effective systems for responding to those situations". Educating and empowering JOHSCs to carry out their functions is paramount and critical to committees’ success. This is the motivation behind COSHARE’s pilot year as it focuses on building the internal capacity of JOHSCs to deal with OHS issues within their organizations, with the ultimate goal of being able to sustain an effective primary and secondary prevention program using the PEARS model. To this end, 8 strategies have been developed which will assist JOHSCs to function independently where they can, while still being effective.

COSHARE is an OHSAH pilot program that launched in January 2008 and will run for one year. Eleven affiliate organizations are taking part in this exciting project.