Month: July 2012

How to Create a Disaster Plan

Preparing for the worst can help minimize the risk. Sample disaster plans are widely available on the Internet, including the SBA’s Web site, and can be customized for your business needs.

Here’s a short list of how to prepare to best protect your business, should disaster strike:

  • Review insurance policies. It’s smart for any business owner to take out property insurance policies, which cover the cost of replacing damaged or destroyed equipment or buildings. But also consider business interruption insurance, which covers lost income in the event that your business is forced to shut down temporarily.
  • Develop a contingency plan. Come up with a list of backup vendors or suppliers in case your primary ones are shut down. Consider alternative work sites so that you can keep operating. Keep a list of twenty- four- hour emergency numbers for all your employees, and develop a quick and efficient way of keeping employees informed.
  • Back it up. Make backup copies of all critical records, such as accounting and employee data, customer lists, production formulas and inventory. Keep that information in a separate location at least fifty miles away, or subscribe to a online data backup service provider.

via How to Create a Disaster Plan – Small Business – WSJ.com.

What Are The Risks? – Rethinking Drinking

What are the risks of drinking?

You may have heard that regular light to moderate drinking can be good for the heart. With heavy or at-risk drinking, however, any potential benefits are outweighed by greater risks, including

  • Injuries. Drinking too much increases your chances of being injured or even killed. Alcohol is a factor, for example, in about 60% of fatal burn injuries, drownings, and homicides; 50% of severe trauma injuries and sexual assaults; and 40% of fatal motor vehicle crashes, suicides, and fatal falls.
  • Health problems. Heavy drinkers have a greater risk of liver disease, heart disease, sleep disorders, depression, stroke, bleeding from the stomach, sexually transmitted infections from unsafe sex, and several types of cancer. They may have problems managing diabetes, high blood pressure, and other conditions.
  • Birth defects. Drinking during pregnancy can cause brain damage and other serious problems in the baby. Because it is not yet known whether any amount of alcohol is safe for a developing baby, women who are pregnant or may become pregnant should not drink.
  • Alcohol use disorders. Generally known as alcoholism and alcohol abuse, alcohol use disorders are medical conditions that doctors can diagnose when a patient’s drinking causes distress or harm. In the United States, about 18 million people have an alcohol use disorder.

Beyond these physical and mental health risks, frequent heavy drinking also is linked with personal problems, including losing a driver’s license and having relationship troubles.

via What are the risks? – Rethinking Drinking – NIAAA.

The Five Steps of Risk Management Leads To Lower Cost

There are five steps to risk management:

  • Identify
  • Analyze
  • Control
  • Finance
  • Measure

The most important step is “Identify” because you can’t Analyze, Control, Finance or Measure what you don’t know. Insurance is “NOT” risk management. Insurance is “FINANCING” risk. Managing risk 365 days a year vs. buying insurance 1 day a year is the key to lowering the total cost of risk (TCOR) for business.

Injuries from Ingestion of Wire Bristles from Grill-Cleaning Brushes

Foreign object ingestion is a common reason for visiting an emergency department (ED), particularly for children (1–3). In recent years, internal injuries have been reported following unintentional ingestions of wire grill-cleaning brush bristles by both children and adults (4–6). A series of six cases from a single hospital system with two EDs during July 2009–November 2010 was reported previously (4). This report describes a series of six more cases identified at the same hospital system during March 2011–June 2012. The six patients ranged in age from 31 to 64 years; five were men. Like the patients in the previous series (4), all six reported outdoor residential food grilling and use of commercially available wire grill-cleaning brushes. The severity of injury ranged from puncture of the soft tissues of the neck, causing severe pain on swallowing, to perforation of the gastrointestinal tract requiring emergent surgery. Awareness of this potential injury among health-care professionals is critical to facilitate timely diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, awareness among the public, manufacturers who make wire grill-cleaning brushes, and retailers who sell these products can reduce exposures and decrease the likelihood of further occurrences. Before cooking, persons should examine the grill surface carefully for the presence of bristles that might have dislodged from the grill brush and could embed in cooked food. Alternative residential grill-cleaning methods or products might be considered.

via Injuries from Ingestion of Wire Bristles from Grill-Cleaning Brushes — Providence, Rhode Island, March 2011–June 2012.

Older Workers To Outnumber Younger Employees For The First Time

Whether out of economic need or simply a desire to continue working, many baby boomers aren’t leaving their jobs anytime soon.

In fact, many workers 55 and older are staying in the workforce. By year’s end their numbers will surpass those who are aged 25 to 34. And the trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future — until 2020.

via Older Workers To Outnumber Younger Employees For The First Time.

Healthy Aging Over 50

Healthy aging is a hot topic for baby boomers everywhere. Whether you’re concerned about weight gain, sex drive or chronic diseases, the key to healthy aging is a healthy lifestyle. Eating a variety of healthy foods, practicing portion control and including physical activity in your daily routine can go a long way toward promoting healthy aging. Better yet, its never too late to make healthier lifestyle choices.

via Healthy aging – MayoClinic.com.

Stop the Strain at Work

Overexertion has long been among the leading causes of nonfatal workplace injuries, and attempts to combat it continue to be a burden on employers and their pocketbooks.  An estimated 3.5 million overexertion injuries occur every year, most of which are from excessive lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling or carrying. Back injuries are the most common form of overexertion in the workplace and can result in huge costs. According to a 2010 report from the Boston-based Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, in 2008, overexertion cost businesses $13.4 billion in direct workers’ compensation costs – accounting for more than 25 percent of the overall $53.4 billion national burden.

via 6 11 Stop the Strain.

How can you lose weight and keep it off for good?

How can you lose weight and keep it off for good? Successful dieters in the National Weight Control Registry, a group of 10,000 people who have lost 30 pounds or more and maintained that loss for a year or more, have developed many weight-control strategies. For instance, they:

  • Follow a low-calorie, low-fat diet of about 1,800 calories a day.
  • Keep track of food intake.
  • Count calories, carbs or fat grams or use a commercial weight-loss program to track food intake.
  • Walk about an hour a day or burn the same calories doing other physical activities.
  • Eat breakfast regularly, often including whole grains and low-fat dairy products.
  • Limit dining out to an average of three times a week, and fast food to less than once a week.
  • Eat similar foods often and dont splurge much.
  • Watch fewer than 10 hours of TV a week.
  • Weigh themselves at least once a week.

via Obesity could affect 42% of Americans by 2030 – USATODAY.com.

Buckle Up – Even in the Back Seat

Unbuckled occupants “become a back-seat bullet” in a crash, says Pam Fischer, state highway traffic safety director. In collisions, experts say, unbelted passengers in the back seat continue to move at the same rate of speed as the vehicle they’re in until they hit something — seat back, dashboard, windshield or people in the front seat. Yet many view the back seat as somehow safer.

via States expand seat belt laws to cover rear-seat riders – USATODAY.com.

The Hidden Costs of Accidents

Accidents are more expensive than most people realize because of the hidden costs. Some costs are obvious — for example, Workers’ Compensation claims which cover medical costs and indemnity payments for an injured or ill worker. These are the direct costs of accidents.

But what about the costs to train and compensate a replacement worker, repair damaged property, investigate the accident and implement corrective action, and to maintain insurance coverage? Even less apparent are the costs related to schedule delays, added administrative time, lower morale, increased absenteeism, and poorer customer relations. These are the indirect costs — costs that aren’t so obvious until we take a closer look.

via Safety and Health Management Systems eTool | Module 1 – Safety and Health Payoffs – Costs of Accidents.