We've all heard of a Dental Hygienist, but what about an Industrial Hygienist? Watch this video created by American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) which explains the very important and crucial role industrial hygienists play in maintaining a safe work environment.

This video's timely release coincides with NAOSH Week which takes aim at improving education and awareness surrounding health and safety issues in the workplace.

Ahead of a value-based purchasing initiative to begin for Medicare in 2014 under the federal government's Affordable Care Act, hospitals across the U.S. should be taking a long, hard look at their quality processes and how they measure their success. Value-based purchasing under the U.S. healthcare reform means Medicare will start paying institutions more for scoring high on a series of measures that indicate patient care, and will pay less to those who do not meet the quality benchmarks.

While quality of health care is important if only to ensure patients receive satisfactory care, a few hospitals in the U.S. who earnestly measure their quality processes are starting to notice an additional benefit to ensuring the utmost care is delivered. One successful case is Detroit's Henry Ford Health Systems, which launched a quality improvement program in 2008 called the "No Harm Campaign". The program sought to improve patient care and reduce the amount of patient "harm events" that occurred. In doing so, over a four-year period and across its five hospitals, Henry Ford recently announced it saw $10 million in cost savings by reducing infections, improving procedures and preventing patient and employee injuries.

Tracking ROI of quality programs is relatively new to the healthcare industry. Henry Ford's chief quality officer, William Conway M.D., admits in Quality News Today  that "in most industries, improving quality reduces costs, but was not recognized in healthcare until only recently because insurers and Medicare used to pay hospitals for higher utilization generated by mistakes, errors or bad outcomes."

Now that the new healthcare law signed under the Obama administration will begin zeroing in on quality of care metrics and directly linking compensation to achievement in this area, it's expected that the industry will see an increase in the investment hospitals are making towards tracking, measuring and continuously improving the quality of their care.

The US Department of Labor's OSHA has announced that it is seeking applications for two types of training grants, with funds to be awarded totalling $1.2 million. The two types of grants available are Targeted Topic Training and Targeted Topic Training and Educational Materials Development.

OSHA has outlined the following topics for the grants: fall protection, grain handling operations, crane safety, workplace violence, hazard communication for chemical exposure, injury and illness prevention programs, and shipyard safety hazards. Under the Susan Harword Training Grants Program, the focus of these grants is to provide workers and employers with the tools and resources necessary to understand workplace hazards, control measures, and rights and responsibilities.

The grant was named in honour of the late Susan Harwood, a former director of the Office of Risk Assessment in OSHA's Health standards directorate, who died in 1996. During her 17-year tenure with the agency, Harwood developed OSHA standards to protect workers exposed to bloodborne pathogens, cotton dust, benzene, formaldehyde, asbestos and lead in construction.

The following are recognized as eligible applicants for the Susan Harwood Training Grants:

• Non-profit, community, and faith-based organizations
• Employer associations
• Labour unions
• Joint labour/management associations
• Colleges and universities

These grants will come with a one year term focused on creating sustainable training programs and materials for those selected. Agencies of state and local governments will not be eligible but instiutions of higher education supported by state and local government can apply in accordance with 29 Code of Federal Regulations Part 95.

Applications must be submitted by 4p.m. EDT on May 17, 2012.

Applicants must register before completing the application which can both be done at www.grants.gov. The process is considered to be quite involved and takes multiple days to complete, so eligible applicants are encouraged to begin the process as soon as possible.

Visit the OSHA's training grant website for more information on the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program.

Last week Training Specialist Steph DiRaddo conducted our largest in-house user training session with client Veresen Inc, which owns and operates energy infrastructure assets across North America. The training stretched over two days and brought Veresen plant managers from their eastern facilities together with the Alberta-based project team here at Intelex headquarters in Toronto.

Veresen is getting ready to launch their appropriately named SMART (Sustainability Management and Reporting Tool) using Intelex’s EHS Incident Management application to 200 users across North America. The project team has been working diligently to ensure a smooth introduction of the new system to various internal departments, and in doing so has provided a great example of how they can creatively engage employees that will be working with the system.

Demonstrating their full commitment to SMART, and to further encourage user adoption and integration, the Veresen Project Team went as far as creating a new logo and some terrific branded materials. Ergonomic mouse pads and travel first aid kits with the SMART logo will be a nice complement to the roll-out of the system and a great addition to users’ offices. “Their brand marketing for the project is something I’ve never seen,” Steph commented. “They are using the system to cultivate a culture shift in the way they look at EHS.”

User adoption is such an important piece in maximizing the use and benefit of the system, and Veresen has gone the extra mile to ensure SMART is welcomed and embraced into the company’s safety reporting activities. This is definitely a smart initiative and we’re thrilled to be a part of it!

More Tips to Help Boost User Adoption

Here are some other ways that you can encourage user adoption of the Intelex system throughout your organization:

• Ask senior management to communicate the implementation of Intelex through a companywide announcement. This may come in the form of an email, internal newsletter or intranet posting.

• Distribute brochures detailing the applications or systems being used.

• Make instructional manuals readily available to users and provide information specific to their access level.

• Create a micro-site on your website where employees can access system FAQs, workflow diagrams, helpful links, etc.

• Give your active users access to Intelex-Exchange, an online portal full of learning materials and system resources.

• Dedicate a person or team (depending on implementation size) to be the “Intelex Guru”, the go-to person for questions, training or anything Intelex-related.

Intelex’s marketing team is able to assist any client with the above mentioned items and can help tailor any existing resources to meet specific needs.

With Halloween in the dust and an honourable mention to Intelex’s very own Brandyn Berry for the stylin’ Michael Jackson costume he moon-walked through the office last Friday, today marks the start of the Movember fundraising campaign, both globally and here at Intelex. For those who haven’t heard of Movember, it’s a campaign that raises funds and awareness for prostate cancer and is best credited for the majority of entertaining and unique moustaches you’ll see during the month of November. Throughout the month Mo Bros (as they are affectionately called) “donate their face” to the cause and cultivate a fancy moustache, collecting donations for their efforts while they grow. As they effectively become walking, talking billboards for the campaign, Mo Bros raise awareness and promote discussion around the often ignored issue of men’s prostate health. And while the growing is typically left up to the men, women also have the opportunity to take part in raising awareness by becoming a Mo Sista and supporting their Mo Bros. 

To find out more about the Movember movement visit the website.

If you’d like to support Movember or start your own team, get involved here.

Moustache Season. Now Open.

For the third year in a row, Intelexians were invited to make monetary and food donations to helpToronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank with its Fall Drive. Intelex staff donated a total of $1,175 and just like last year, President and CEO Mark Jaine pledged that the company would match all donations made during the drive, which ran at our office from September 21, to October 14, 2011.

Thanks to the many generous people in our office, Intelex was able to contribute a total of $2,350 toward Daily Bread’s goal for its 2011 Fall Drive. We also collected about 30 lbs of non-perishable food items that will be delivered to a local drop-off location.

Daily Bread Food Bank is a non-profit, charitable organization that is fighting to end hunger in communities across the Greater Toronto Area. Every year thousands of people across the GTA rely on food banks and Daily Bread serves the majority of these people through neighbourhood food banks and meal programs in its member agencies. In 2010, there were over 794,000 client visits to over 170 of Daily Bread’s member agencies food banks and meal programs.

Thanks again to everyone who donated to Daily Bread Food Bank!