OHSAH is pleased to announce that Sarah Sugiyama has joined the communications team, assuming the role of Manager, Communications while Tina Robinson enjoys her maternity leave. Accredited with the Canadian Public Relations Society (APR, CPRS), Sarah is an expert in 360-degree, integrated communications strategies. During her tenure, Sarah will lead OHSAH’s communications initiatives, planning and brand framework.

Sarah joins OHSAH from her recent role as Senior Manager, Communications for the Rick Hansen Foundation. Her attention to quality, detail and the needs of her audiences helped to maximize the success of the programs she was involved in.

In her spare time, Sarah volunteers as a board member and public relations counsel to a number of non-profit organizations, including the British Columbia Wheelchair Basketball Society, Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society, Coast Courage to Come Back Awards, and Multiple Births Canada.

Sarah's talent and expertise coupled with her passion for innovative communications solutions will be a welcomed addition to OHSAH's team!

Workers have five to seven times the risk of sustaining a workplace injury during their first month on the job. Effective July 26, 2007, amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation will require employers to train and orient all new workers on occupational health and safety practices.

OHSAH and WorkSafeBC have developed a checklist to assist those responsible for completing orientation and training with new healthcare workers. The checklist identifies the key requirements to be addressed during worker orientation and is designed specifically for healthcare and social services. It can be provided to new workers as a resource and also retained for documentation. The checklist will soon be available for download from OHSAH and WorkSafeBC.

While the use of ceiling lifts in acute care and long-term care environments has been shown to reduce musculoskeletal injuries among healthcare workers, implementing ceiling lifts in the home and community care environment has proven challenging. Thanks to funding from WorkSafeBC, researchers from OHSAH, Peak Research Inc, BCIT, and UBC are conducting a one-year study to identify and analyze the key issues related to access and adoption of ceiling lifts in the home environment and to develop a model for the successful implementation of a ceiling lift program for home and community care in BC.

After a comprehensive literature review and initial interviews with workers and supervisors, OHSAH has developed an initial model of a provincial ceiling lift program for home and community care that includes centralized information and training resources, and regional program champions. Key stakeholders including unions, employers, clients, and equipment suppliers are now participating in further interviews to evaluate the proposed model.

For further details, please visit the OHSAH website.

OHSAH continues to be intimately involved in the evaluation of PEARS and strives to maintain provincial consistency in the evaluation of all programs. One of PEARS 2006 priorities was the development of a provincially standardized satisfaction survey to be administered to all PEARS participants. The PEARS satisfaction survey is a voluntary survey used to receive participant experience and feedback that is critical to evaluating and improving program services. To further support PEARS programs, OHSAH, in collaboration with the PEARS programs in Interior Health and their local bi-partite PEARS steering committees, has begun piloting a process in which satisfaction surveys will be directly collected and evaluated through OHSAH. This process will help remove response bias by allowing PEARS evaluation to be conducted at an arm’s length from those delivering the service. Furthermore, it will relieve programs from survey collection and evaluation, allowing PEARS teams to focus more on treatment and service delivery. It is also hoped that the collection of surveys by a third party will increase survey response rates.

Pilot Survey: Step-by-step
Satisfaction survey packages will be administered to all PEARS participants at the time of program discharge. Completed surveys will be sent directly to OHSAH either via fax or through mail with a pre-stamped, addressed envelope which has been provided as part of the package by OHSAH. Online methods are also currently being explored as another vehicle for survey collection.

Survey participation is completely voluntary and all surveys will be collected directly through OHSAH to ensure the anonymity of respondents. Survey findings will be reported back to the PEARS programs at a group level and the identity of participants will not be disclosed to anyone. The surveys will also be destroyed once the responses are analyzed at a group level.

This is an exciting pilot project, and if successful, it is hoped that similar processes involving OHSAH as the third party in program evaluation can be offered to other PEARS programs provincially for future evaluations. This will provide PEARS with an amazing opportunity to collect satisfaction data that will help programs evaluate the efficacy of PEARS and offer program feedback for improvement and expansion.

Formaldehyde solutions are commonly used in healthcare as disinfectants, sterilizing agents, and fixatives in medical laboratories, placing healthcare workers, such as nurses and medical lab technicians, at risk of substantial occupational formaldehyde exposure.

Among several adverse health effects associated with exposure, formaldehyde is a skin sensitizer implicated in many cases of allergic contact dermatitis. Most commonly, workers who are frequently exposed through skin contact may develop an allergy to formaldehyde. Sensitization may also occur as a result of a single acute exposure in some individuals. Workers who have become sensitized to formaldehyde can experience severe skin reactions upon exposure. Protection is key to preventing sensitization.

Gloves selected, to protect against exposure to formaldehyde, must be of the appropriate material and thickness for a given task. Butyl and nitrile rubber glove materials are recommended when handling 30-70% formaldehyde solutions, while natural rubber (latex) gloves, polyethylene, and polyvinyl alcohol gloves are permeated by formaldehyde in less than one hour under standard conditions and are NOT recommended when handling formaldehyde solutions.

For a further review of this and other adverse health effects associated with occupational formaldehyde exposure, please refer to the full article.

Violence and aggressive behaviour represents approximately 13-14% of all time-loss claims occurring in healthcare and social services: the third highest type of claim. In addition to this impact, numerous studies have shown that exposure to excessive, aggressive, and violent behaviours is known to negatively impact healthcare workers’ mental and physical health. However, developing, implementing, and evaluating effective programs has been challenging and Violence Prevention Programs are not standardized across BC’s Healthcare worksites.

To address this serious issue, OHSAH is coordinating the creation of a Provincial Violence Prevention Steering Committee (PVPSC) with the support of BC’s Healthcare stakeholders (Ministry of Health, Nursing Policy Management Committee, HEABC, Health Authorities: PHSA, FH, VCH, VIHA, NH, IH, Affiliate Employers, Healthcare Unions: BCNU, UPN, HEU, BCGEU, and HSA). The PVPSC’s purpose is to develop and oversee implementation of a comprehensive, cohesive, and effective provincial violence prevention strategy for healthcare worksites in BC. The PVPSC will work with the Regional Violence Prevention Committees and identify and promote examples of best practice in violence prevention.

Through collaboration, we can provide the necessary infrastructure for a coordinated approach to violence prevention for BC’s healthcare workers.