Health care clinicians and executives tend to focus on patient care and believe their compliance with accreditation organizations and federal (CMS, HIPAA, FDA) administrative regulations means their facility possesses a solid health and safety program. These are misconceptions that contribute to an environment where health care workers suffer a rate of illness and injury far higher than most private industries.
This comprehensive book demonstrates how a total worker health and safety program can help meet regulatory and compliance requirements and simultaneously improve the quality of patient care. Readers will learn strategies and tactics that will stop the above-average risk of health care workers incurring a work-related injury or illness, and they will better understand the organizational and business performance improvements that will result. Total Health and Safety for Health Care Facilities can help identify the true costs and liabilities of poor health and safety performance and provide methods to measure and consolidate the responsibility for employee health and safety. It is an essential guide for meeting safety and health requirements and introduces programs that complement existing patient safety and risk management programs.
The book serves as both an information source for beginners and a reference for experienced health and safety professionals. Each chapter provides a discussion of who should be involved in decisions, approaches for solving problems, solutions, examples of things facilities have successfully tried, and a section covering Joint Commission standards. The book also contains 17 tables and 68 figures that serve to clarify information and a CD-ROM with supplemental information.
About the Author
Linda Chaff is President of Chaff & Co. She has written more than a dozen books published by the National Safety Council, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association that address aspects of health and safety in the health care field. She has served on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) national committee for health care emergency preparedness and has participated in AHA’s videoconference, Confronting the Risk: Hazardous Materials and Hospital Liability. Her credits include the Russell L. Colling Literary Award and appointments on committee and board positions with safety and civic councils, including the executive committee of the National Safety Council’s Health Care Section.