AAOHN touts nurses' role in bottom line
AAOHN touts nurses' role in bottom line
Health and productivity is focus for 2007
As employers give more weight to the impact employee health has on their companies' bottom line, occupational health nurses (OHNs) should make a concerted effort to cement their place as leaders in workplace health, according to leaders in the profession.
While a focused effort on relating health to productivity might seem to be an understood element of occupational and environmental health nursing, Susan Randolph, RN, COHN-S, president of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN), says the association's newly released position statement clearly stakes out OHNs' role in the overall health of American business.
"[Health and productivity] is an area that we're going to place more emphasis, and the new position statement on that topic explains how the contributions of occupational and environmental health nurses relate to wellness, and how [wellness] is integrated with businesses' production and health care costs," Randolph explains.
The position statement, Occupational and Environmental Health Nurses' Role in Improving Employee Health and Productivity, released on the AAOHN web site in January exhorts OHNs to:
- Be role models for healthy behaviors.
- Develop and leverage programs that encourage employees to be accountable for their own physical, mental, and emotional health.
- Act as advocates and experts on health issues within and outside the workplace. (For information on how to access the position statement, see resource information, at end of article.)
2007 focus: OHN value to business
AAOHN in January also announced its focus areas for 2007. Randolph says that while the list of issues — workplace violence, nursing compacts, hazard preparedness, confidentiality of employee health records, the health productivity relationship, and quality of work environments — may look the same as it did in 2006, both the issues and the association's emphasis have shifted.
"One of the areas we tweaked [from 2006's public policy platform] was the health and productivity piece," Randolph points out. "That is an area we'll have more emphasis on, as our position statement demonstrates. We want to address more the role the occupational and environmental health nurse plays within the company and the larger community." Another hot topic in occupational health continues to be the protection of employees' confidentiality as medical records migrate from paper to electronic, Randolph adds.
The confidential treatment of health information and health records — sometimes in the face of employer pressure to disclose information — always has been a key responsibility of OHNs. With increasing prominence of telehealth, electronic medical records, genetic issues, privacy requirements imposed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and other compliance requirements, however, OHNs face an increasing challenge to protect employee privacy of personal health information from unauthorized disclosure.
Resource
- To read the American Association of Occupational Health Nurse's (AAOHN's) new position statement on the influence of nurses on corporate well-being, "Occupational and Environmental Health Nurses' Role in Improving Employee Health and Productivity," visit the AAOHN web site at www.aaohn.org. On the menu at the left of the home page, click on "For Your Practice," and then scroll down to "Position Statements."
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