Risk Profile Improvement
Install smoke alarms on every floor of your home, including the basement. Be sure to place smoke alarms near rooms where people sleep. Test all of your smoke alarms every month to ensure they work properly.
via CDC – Family Health – Parents: ABCs of Raising Safe and Healthy Kids.
BJ Fogg founder of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University designed a behavior model to serve as a guide to identify what stops people from performing desirable behaviors. The Fogg Behavior Model shows that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur:
When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three elements is missing.
When designing health and safety processes it’s important to include all three elements to drive desired behavior change. To be successful you need participation, education and encouragement built into the process.
Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in a way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of antibiotics. These resistant bacteria survive and multiply – causing more harm, such as a longer illness, more doctor visits, and a need for more expensive antibiotics. Resistant bacteria may even cause death.
Parent pressure makes a difference. For pediatric care, a recent study showed that doctors prescribe antibiotics 65% of the time if they perceive parents expect them; and 12% of the time if they feel parents do not expect them. Parents should not demand antibiotics when a health care provider has determined they are not needed. Parents should talk with their health care provider about antibiotic resistance.
via CDC – Family Health – Parents: ABCs of Raising Safe and Healthy Kids.
Workplace health programs can increase productivity
In general, healthier employees are more productive.
The cost savings of providing a workplace health program can be measured against absenteeism among employees, reduced overtime to cover absent employees, and costs to train replacement employees.
via CDC – Workplace Health – Business Case – Benefits of Health Program – Increase Productivity.
Falls are the No. 1 cause of home injuries and death in the U.S., according to the Home Safety Council. The two groups most at risk for falls are children younger than 5 and adults over the age of 70.
Try these strategies to prevent falls at home:
Definition of Lean:
Doing more with less by employing “lean thinking.” Lean manufacturing involves never ending efforts to eliminate or reduce ‘muda” (Japanese for waste or any activity that consumes resources without adding value) in design, manufacturing, distribution, and customer service processes.
So what’s “beyond lean” or the “next lean”. I have found that applying “lean” thinking to employee health and productivity eliminates waste in the cost of health care, work comp, absenteeism and presenteeism (at work but not productive). To be successful you need a process or road map. The process is the five steps of risk management. They are:
Don’t make the mistake of thinking insurance is risk management. Insurance is not risk management; in fact it is the 4th step of the process. Skipping (or poor execution of) the first 3 steps leads the waste (higher cost) and poor results in step 5.
Payroll, Benefits and Work Comp are typically the highest cost a business has yet in many cases this area is often overlooked for waste.
Dental decay is one of the most common chronic infectious diseases among U.S. children. This preventable health problem begins early: 17% of children aged 2-4 years have already had decay. By the age of 8, approximately 52% of children have experienced decay, and by the age of 17, dental decay affects 78% of children. Children and adults who are at low risk of dental decay can stay cavity-free through frequent exposure to small amounts of fluoride. This is best gained by drinking fluoridated water and using a fluoride toothpaste twice daily. Children and adults at high risk of dental decay may benefit from using additional fluoride products, including dietary supplements (for children who do not have adequate levels of fluoride in their drinking water), mouth rinses, and professionally applied gels and varnishes.
via CDC – Family Health – Parents: ABCs of Raising Safe and Healthy Kids.
Chemicals pose a wide range of health hazards (such as irritation, sensitization, and carcinogenicity) and physical hazards (such as flammability, corrosion, and reactivity). OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) is designed to ensure that information about these hazards and associated protective measures is disseminated. This is accomplished by requiring chemical manufacturers and importers to evaluate the hazards of the chemicals they produce or import, and to provide information about them through labels on shipped containers and more detailed information sheets called material safety data sheets (MSDSs). All employers with hazardous chemicals in their workplaces must prepare and implement a written hazard communication program, and must ensure that all containers are labeled, employees are provided access to MSDSs, and an effective training program is conducted for all potentially exposed employees.
via Safety and Health Topics | Hazard Communication | What is Hazard Communication?.
There are several ways to safeguard children. Undoubtedly the most effective is to educate them from an early age about the risks they may encounter when online … what these risks are, how to spot them and what action to take. There are a number of online age-appropriate educational resources available to parents/guardians and teachers, and children themselves, covering every aspect of online safety for children.
You should also take the following measures. Remember that these factors will change as children grow up and should be reconsidered regularly.
Remember that a lot of the above advice also applies to your children’s use of mobile phones, tablets and games consoles.
Human resources have two roles in risk management.
First, people are a source of risk, e.g., shortage of employees, people doing sloppy work, an employee refusing to take on additional responsibility, or a key employee leaving two months after completion of a one-year training program.
Second, people are important in handling risk, e.g., people using their ingenuity to solve unexpected problems, employees going the extra mile for the good of the organization, a key employee redesigning her own job to avoid unnecessary delays in getting work done, or an employee persuading a talented friend to apply for a position in the business.
via The Role of Human Resource Management in Risk Management – eXtension.