Healthcare workers are some of the hardest-working and yet underappreciated givers on our planet.
Most of the work they do is to help and serve others who are in various states of disorder – from pneumonia or high fever to high blood pressure to cancer and gunshot wounds. Whenever someone is in trouble, healthcare workers are among the first ones there to take care of them, showing compassion for strangers and friends alike and putting themselves at risk of catching diseases of their own while working around sick people constantly.
It is a little different world with home healthcare workers, compared to their brethren in hospitals and clinics. It is much of the same in terms of sacrifice of time and effort for the service and assistance of someone less fortunate, but the dynamics of the environment are different. Though different, it does not mean that it is necessarily safer, nor does it mean that home health workers are at necessarily lower risk of injury or illness in these home environments.
The challenge is that the workplace safety protocols do not apply to home-health workers in the same way as those who work in a clinic or health center. Home health has its own hazards, and healthcare workers deserve their own safety protocols and education to better negotiate these environments safely.
NIOSH has taken on the role of education seriously on behalf of these home-health workers, creating seven educational modules that can be taken online by all home-health workers and their supervisors to provide a self-paced and customizable curriculum in providing safety on the job or these in-the-field workers.
The modules are all self-contained, meaning that they are not serial in nature and thus can be used individually or as part of the series, based on the most immediate needs of the workers and the company. Each module has a trainer’s guide, handouts and slides to help with visuals. The seven topics covered are:
- An introduction to home health safety.
- How to reduce the frequency of strains, sprains and falls at a home site.
- Protecting oneself from various environmental exposures in a home.
- Ways to reduce exposure to infectious and contagious diseases, including bloodborne viruses.
- How to work safetly around patients with dementia and similar mental disorders.
- Establishing safe and stress-less boundaries.
- Best practices for handling threatening behavior safely.
You can visit this link to get more information and access to the training materials and modules.