{"id":29090,"date":"2017-01-06T22:06:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T22:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/?p=29090"},"modified":"2017-01-09T17:24:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T17:24:21","slug":"center-occupational-health-helps-companies-monitor-health-safety-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/2017\/01\/center-occupational-health-helps-companies-monitor-health-safety-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"The Center For Occupational Health Helps Companies Monitor Health And Safety Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_29092\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29092\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29092\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2017\/01\/center-for-occupational-health-hc.jpg\" alt=\"This is the Wilton office of the Center for Occupational Health and Safety. The agency helps businesses throughout the region maintain quality workplace health care. \u00a92017 Saratoga Photographer.com\" width=\"850\" height=\"629\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2017\/01\/center-for-occupational-health-hc.jpg 850w, https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2017\/01\/center-for-occupational-health-hc-300x222.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2017\/01\/center-for-occupational-health-hc-768x568.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29092\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is the Wilton office of the Center for Occupational Health and Safety. The agency helps businesses throughout the region maintain quality workplace health care.<br \/><em>\u00a92017 Saratoga Photographer.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>By Susan E. Campbell<\/p>\n<p>The greatest asset a business has is its people. Keeping both workers and the workplace healthy and safe directly impacts a company\u2019s bottom line and more.<\/p>\n<p>The Center for Occupational Health (COH), a service of Glens Falls Hospital, helps businesses throughout the region maintain quality workplace health care. Last year, COH served 31,000 individuals and 2,000 companies from its locations in Queensbury, Wilton, and at individual company sites, said COH director Cathy Reichen, PT, DPT.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompanies want to make sure that new hires are fit and capable of doing the work they are being asked to do,\u201d Reichen said. \u201cInjuries hit the bottom line with increased workers comp costs, lack of work, and decreased productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Often companies are driven to COH by compliance. For example, if a job requires using respirators to determine fitness, there are standards by OSHA that have to be met. COH performs the tests before initial hire and also annually, if required to comply with federal regulations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor firefighters, we will do lab work and physicals, an EKG and respirator-fit test,\u201d said Reichen. \u201cThe goal is to create a team that is as healthy as possible for the demands of the job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Testing is tailored to the type of company and every company is different, Reichen said. Depending on the requirements of the work assignment, performing drug and alcohol screening, a lift test, hearing test and other measurements \u201care as important as a background check and references for bringing a new hire on board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The company may also want similar tests upon exiting a job, she said. Having performed testing at the onset and determined a baseline, the employee can make sure nothing has changed and can go into a new job knowing their numbers: glucose and cholesterol levels, blood pressure, hearing levels and so on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe right employee for the right job\u201d and \u201ckeeping employees fit and healthy\u201d are the mantras at COH. But questions do arise about working safely and ergonomics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cErgonomics is the science of fitting the job to a worker. If you try to fit the worker to a job, they may overextend and hurt themselves,\u201d Reichen said.<\/p>\n<p>COH teaches how to adjust the work station, chair, computer, or in combination to reduce load on the body. One size does not fit all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou never can get 100 percent of the people to fit into a job,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s why companies need an appropriate job description.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Employers are not allowed to ask questions about an applicant\u2019s medical condition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not the employer or the primary care provider,\u201d said Reichen. \u201cSo we can be completely objective while collecting a full medical history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes job descriptions change, such as when adding a new task or operation. This is an occasion that the company can ask COH for an analysis or consultation, do pain reports, look at injuries, identify risks, and find ways to minimize potential dangers, said Reichen.<\/p>\n<p>Injuries happen, and it\u2019s important to treat individuals efficiently and effectively to return to the work place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of our return-to-work focus is making sure patients understand what happened and why, and get the problem fixed,\u201d Reichen said.<\/p>\n<p>When analyzing what happened, Reichen said to look first at the engineering for the source of the problem, and then the human.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWas there a workstation or machine change? Or if it was the person, what can be done do effect a more efficient work posture?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>COH has a program to help hospital employees quit smoking. It offers free counseling, free nicotine patches, and monitoring. While the smoking cessation outreach is not currently offered to non-employees, there are other departments within the hospital and the community with whom COH has connections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGlens Falls Hospital knows who to link companies with to provide educational programs and community-based services that help employees,\u201d said Reichen.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, call the center at 926-2140, or visit www.glensfallshospital.org\/services\/hospital\/occupational-health.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Susan E. Campbell The greatest asset a business has is its people. Keeping both workers and the workplace healthy and safe directly impacts a company\u2019s bottom line and more. The Center for Occupational Health (COH), a service of Glens Falls Hospital, helps businesses throughout the region maintain quality workplace health care. Last year, COH [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":29092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-fitness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>The Center For Occupational Health Helps Companies Monitor Health And Safety Issues - Saratoga Business Journal<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/2017\/01\/center-occupational-health-helps-companies-monitor-health-safety-issues\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Center For Occupational Health Helps Companies Monitor Health And Safety Issues - Saratoga Business Journal\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Susan E. Campbell The greatest asset a business has is its people. Keeping both workers and the workplace healthy and safe directly impacts a company\u2019s bottom line and more. The Center for Occupational Health (COH), a service of Glens Falls Hospital, helps businesses throughout the region maintain quality workplace health care. 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The agency helps businesses throughout the region maintain quality workplace health care. \u00a92017 Saratoga Photographer.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/2017\/01\/center-occupational-health-helps-companies-monitor-health-safety-issues\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Center For Occupational Health Helps Companies Monitor Health And Safety Issues"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/","name":"Saratoga Business Journal","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/#\/schema\/person\/a11ec438b5f0e57f1156754ba3931b86","name":"Jake Van Ness","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0d74f7533bd2ebb3908a187893d5eafbf1ee7752b11715c976372134cbea918d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0d74f7533bd2ebb3908a187893d5eafbf1ee7752b11715c976372134cbea918d?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jake Van Ness"},"url":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/author\/jakev\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29090"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29100,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29090\/revisions\/29100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}