Home Health & Hospice Week

If you're looking for ways to keep your home care employees safe and on the job, the Centers for Disease Control has a new 51-page resource for you, and we've got some information about how you can improve upon an important point it missed.

"Occupational Hazards in Home Healthcare,"which is co-written by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health identifies the top hazards and offers tips for combating them.

Don't miss: The checklists at the end of the booklet help workers think about how things as simple as the shoes they wear or talking on the cell phone while driving can impact their safety.

The first step is awareness. Some top dangers, according to the report, include: overexertion, stress, guns and other weapons, illegal drugs, verbal abuse and other forms of violence in the home or community, bloodborne pathogens, needlesticks, latex sensitivity, temperature extremes, unhygienic conditions including lack of water, unclean or hostile animals, and animal waste, and long commutes from worksite to worksite leading to transportation-related risks.

The second step is to develop prevention strategies. Here are some helpful tips for the top five most common hazards:

1. Overexertion: You may wish to consult with a professional who has expertise in patient-care ergonomics. This will help you to determine when assistive devices may be necessary. These pros will also provide equipment training.

2. Latex Sensitivity: Provide workers with nonlatex gloves when there is minimal contact with infectious materials. If the potential exists for contact with infectious materials, select gloves that pass the ASTM F1671 penetration test for resistance to bloodborne pathogens. If latex gloves are selected, provide reduced-protein, powder-free gloves and also provide training to supervisors and staff on latex allergy. Arrange a medical evaluation for workers with early symptoms and for those with allergies and then ensure homes are kept clean, perhaps with a vacuum with a high-efficiency particulate air filter.

3. Bloodborne Pathogens: Make sure you meet all the requirements of the OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard. Eliminate the use of needle devices whenever safe and effective alternatives are available. Provide needle devices with safety features and determine which are most effective and acceptable. Establish an exposure-control plan; evaluate and update annually. Analyze sharps-related injuries in the workplace to determine hazards and injury patterns.

4. Occupational Stress: Provide frequent, quality supervision and agency staff support along with adequate job training and preparation. Hold regular staff meetings where problems, frustrations, and solutions can be discussed. Include lunch breaks and sufficient travel time in workers' schedules. Provide competitive wages, benefits, and pay raises.

5. Violence: Develop a standard definition of workplace violence and create a zero-tolerance policy. Ask employees to report each incident. Regularly conduct training on workplace violence. Inform workers of assignment risk and teach them how to assess safety of the work environment and  surroundings. For instance, train them on how to recognize verbal abuse; and how to identify different types of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia. Then, give them tools to safely address these problems. Ultimately, do not place workers in an unsafe situation; assess the situation first.

What the report misses: The NIOSH may be looking through rose-colored glasses when it suggests tips to help home care workers avoid musculoskeletal injuries, notes attorney Robert Markette Jr. in his blog. The report recommends that workers use devices to lift patients, as nursing facility workers do. "This is a good point, but the authors seem to have overlooked a key problem," Markette notes. "Home health and facilities are different -- [workers] go into a patient's home and often rely upon the equipment the family has obtained."

One possible workaround, Markette suggests,is to consider during the care planning stage how your employees are going to transfer the patient. Perhaps Medicare will foot the bill for some medically necessary equipment.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that home care employment will grow by 55 percent between 2006 and 2016 -- making it the fastestgrowing occupation this decade. So, while recruitment is high on any HHA's list, retaining those workers and keeping them safe should be just as high. This means creating a healthy and less stressful work climate is key to any retention strategy.