We’re pleased to announce that St. Joseph’s Hospital in Comox is live with the WHITE database! The team at St. Joseph’s, headed by Director of Human Resource Services Don Tate, has been working closely with the OHSAH implementation team over the last few months. St. Joseph’s is now using WHITE to track incidents, submit regulatory information to WorkSafeBC, and monitor the health and well-being of their staff.

Stay tuned for more about new live sites in the coming weeks!

Provincial Violence Prevention Steering Committee

The Violence Prevention program at OHSAH is working with the Provincial Violence Prevention Steering Committee (PVPSC), which consists of a bipartite membership of employers and unions in order to address the problem of violence against healthcare workers.

To date, the PVPSC has developed a document entitled “Key Elements of a Best Practice Violence Prevention Program”, which outlines the necessary components of an effective violence prevention program. This document, set to be publised this Spring, will be useful to healthcare organizations which are currently developing their Violence Prevention Program, as well as those which would like to update or review their current violence prevention practices.

The PVPSC Strategic Action Plan outlines the framework for the development of best practices materials – e.g.,, policies, programs, tools. The PVPSC will be undertaking a comprehensive review of current violence prevention policies and programs in the healthcare sector throughout BC. Part of this environmental scan involves a group of PVPSC representatives traveling to different parts of the province to meet with the Regional Violence Prevention Committees in order to enhance partnerships and exchange relevant information.

Once the information has been compiled and analyzed, the PVPSC will develop education and training materials that will assist healthcare workers in preventing as well as responding to violent behaviour in the workplace. This work will include (per funding) the development of online training modules, coordinating workshops, and various print materials for distribution throughout B.C.

You can find out more about the current and exciting PVPSC violence prevention initiatives at the OHSAH website.

Tell us what you think! March 26-April 15th

To ensure that OHSAH continues to provide you with the most up-to-date information about occupational health and safety issues in BC’s healthcare sector, we are launching a brief questionnaire to ask you ‘what you think’!

Check out www.ohsah.bc.ca to share your thoughts and enter to win a coffee card!

A Joint Occupational Health & Safety Committee Workshop for Community Health and Social Services.

Between January and March 2008, OHSAH and its partners in Home and Community Care piloted a Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee (JOHSC) workshop designed to specifically address the unique challenges faced by Community Health Workers and their employers.

During the 2-day workshop, participants engaged in interactive sessions and small-group activities to:

• Understand their roles and responsibilities as JOHSC Members or Representatives
• Become familiar with the Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation
• Identify hazards, apply the control hierarchy, and write recommendations
• Understand the basic elements of a musculoskeletal injury prevention program and a violence prevention program
• Learn how to conduct effective joint inspections and joint accident investigations

Facilitators delivered the workshop to enthusiastic participants in Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George, and Kelowna. Participants included employer representatives and worker representatives from various healthcare unions, as well as industry specialists from WorkSafeBC.

For more details on workshop content or success, please contact Georgina Hackett: georgina@ohsah.bc.ca

As part of OHSAH’s ongoing Research In Progress Speaker Series, we were pleased to welcome Dr. Kay Teschke to tell us about her research. On February 4, 2008, Dr. Teschke presented on the subject of Parkinson's Disease.

Dr. Teschke is Professor in the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology and the School of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene at UBC. She is Director of the Bridge Program, a pioneering research training program linking the policy, health, and engineering sciences to develop creative solutions to public health problems. Her research focuses on exposure assessment for epidemiological studies and determinants of exposure modeling, with current studies of Parkinson’s disease, back injuries in heavy industry, water quality and gastrointestinal illnesses, and understanding urban infrastructure and cycling. She received her academic training in environmental and occupational health at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Washington in Seattle.

OHSAH’s Research In Progress Speaker Series supports our mandate for knowledge exchange and collaboration across our research community to help make healthcare a healthier place to work. For further information, please contact Dr. Hasanat Alamgir: hasanat@ohsah.bc.ca