Getting the ball rolling

[cdfs]

Hello everyone,

As an ergonomist myself, it was disturbing that the ergonomics thread was empty and forlorn. So, I'm not claiming this will be the most insightful post ever, but we have to start somewhere, eh? ;)

I have considerable experience in training soft tissue injury prevention in the health care sector, but I now work in private industry with folks who do a lot of field work related to environmental assessment and to construction activities. As you can imagine, with moving equipment, driving, sitting, uneven terrain impacted by seasons, we have exposure to soft tissue injury risk factors!

What are your experiences in introducing soft tissue injury prevention measures to field staff? I have a bucketload of experience with manufacturing facilities and institutions, but this is a whole different animal. I have many ideas of how to advance the cause, but thought there may be some potential for discussion here as well.

So people? Thoughts?
Carol

[RFlynt]

Thanks for breaking the ice Carol. This is my first post. I am involved with safety in both Canada and the U.S. I'm just starting to probe deeper into ergonomic issues. I'm in my last semester of college and I'm taking a class in Ergonomics, but would like to combine this with my work. I work in a production plant with operators performing a lot of repetitive tasks. We have not seen too many MSD's, but I'd like to be proactive and perform some type of survey that might help me zero-in on potential problems. Have you ever done any type of employee survey to flush out ergonomic problems? If so, could you give me any wisdom on what to ask, and how to ask it?

[Manitoba_Ergonomics]

Hi Carol,

I'm an ergonomist with the Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health Division. Re: Introducing MSI prevention to Field Staff, the biggest piece is obviously thorough education. Education needs include; 1) Signs and Symptoms of MSI (Early detection is the key to preventing a more serious injury), 2) Education on control measures implemented by the employer (This includes hands on Manual Material Handling training), and 3) Education of the supervisor to catch mistakes and encourage proper work practices.

This supervisor education must be combined with effective policy to give teeth to what the supervisor is enforcing. The goal is to have supervisors think of MSI hazards in the same way as any other workplace hazard. I always ask supervisors what they do when they catch a worker not wearing fall protection or other P.P.E. The answer comes back “I tell them to work properly”. My response of “What if the worker refuses to wear the PPE”, is usually met with a chuckle and a “Well maybe this isn’t the right workplace for you.” The point of that exchange is to show that a supervisor catching a worker using improper MMH technique (in violation of the safe procedure) must be met with the same attitude as other safety violations.

The biggest thing for introducing MSI preveition is the culture shift from “This is the way it’s always been done” to “The way we used to do it caused MSIs, so now we do it this new way.”

Alex

[Manitoba_Ergonomics]

From my experience, the best means of flushing out MSI hazards is to do a symptom survey (Also called a physical discomfort survey). The workers are encouraged to fill out the survey (I've linked to the survey we use in Manitoba at the end of this message). The results of this survey are used in several ways;

1) Workers reporting pain or significant discomfort are encouraged to seek medical assistance. I recommend a sports doctor since G.P.'s don't tend to have enough experience to treat MSIs

2) The survey is used when performing assessments of the task, i.e. if workers across multiple shifts reports pain in wrist from working on the drill press, chances are there are MSI hazards affecting the wrist.

3) My personal favorite, take all the worker surveys and a map of the workplace and actually map out where the pain and discomfort is occuring. You can usually get a map of the workplace from the engineering department. Use red stickers for workstations where workers report pain, and yellow for where they report discomfort. This will allow you to visualize where the issues are occuring, often before an MSI is actually reported.

Regards,

Alex Stuart

http://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/safety/pdf/ergo/a.pdf

[Kimberly]

Hi Alex,
I liked the survey you attached, we use a similar one in Ontario. My question is, how do you get the employer to administer the survey. Their fear is this will open up a pandora's box in the plant.

[Manitoba_Ergonomics]

Kimberly,

Encouraging workers to discuss and report Musculoskeletal pain and injury will most certainly result in an increase in the number of WCB claims. The important thing to remember is that while the frequency of claims is going up the severity (days lost) of those injuries is decreasing.

Since workers comp rates are more strongly linked to days lost rather than number of injuries, the result is a decrease in an employers WCB premiums.

I don't have an easy answer as to how to get employers to talk to their workers about MSIs. Based on my experience in Manitoba, employers who do increase worker awareness of MSIs will experience an initial spike in claims followed by a downward trend in their injury rates and a corresponding decrease in WCB premiums.

Short term pain, long term gain.

Regards,

Alex Stuart

[Kimberly]

Thank you Alex,
You are correct in everything you have said. I will try and approach this topic in the way you suggest to my employer.