Health and Safety in the Workplace

Small and large corporations carry a significant proportion of the provision of health care for families in this country by providing medical insurance for their employees. With the escalating increase in medical cost many corporations are attempting to slow the increase of medical insurance premiums by providing innovative cost control initiatives. Greater emphasis is being put on primary prevention to keep employees healthy and secondary prevention to identify and treat health conditions before they can become serious. 

At some workplaces, employees are being encouraged to take greater responsibility for their health related behaviors through risk rated incentive packages. Linking wellness to employee benefits of gain sharing and co-payment cost reductions will provide new opportunities requiring efforts of collaboration between the human resource managers and the Workplace Health Promotion Program specialists. These two sets of professionals may also work together for the ongoing evaluation of cost effective Workplace Health Promotion Programs. 

In conjunction with the above initiatives most large corporations also have a nurse or physician on staff to dispense worksite medical and preventive care. Some initiatives have also found it cost effective to provide their own physical therapy programming to assist injured and infirm workers in regaining optimal functioning. A broad-based selection of health related employee services and benefits would include the following: 

• Free or low cost health screenings provided on site by employer clinical personnel or through outside contractors:

            Serum cholesterol

            Colorectal cancer testing

            Blood pressure check

            Mammography

            Vision and hearing testing

            Diabetes

• Referral and follow-up procedures (e.g., Hypertension, Cholesterol, Cancer)

• Provision of first aid and emergency care

• Disease control and prevention initiatives

• Child and infirm adult care services

• Pre-retirement and financial planning

• Continued learning/educational opportunities

• Coordination of employer picnics and outings

• Parent-child work visitation initiatives

• Workers compensation/rehabilitation