Fresh Health Wonk Review & assorted news briefs

April 15th, 2010 by Julie Ferguson

New Health Wonk Review – David Harlow of Health Blawg has posted an entertaining and informative Tax Day edition: Health Wonk Review: Block That Metaphor. Grab your coffee and dig in.
Diabetes prevention – At GoozNews, Merrill Goozner writes about the cost-effectiveness of diabetes prevention programs. Employers take note. We’ve frequently talked about the effect of co-morbidities such as diabetes and obesity on comp claims. Any progress on the prevention front would be good news for employers – both for the workers comp costs, and also for overall employee health and productivity.
Handy new toolCompPharmaPedia, a glossary of terms commonly used in the comp pharmacy business, published by CompPharma LLC, a consortium of workers comp PBMs. Not sure what a PBM is? Look it up!
Fleet safety – At the MEMIC Safety Blog, Randy Klatt posts about how GPS as a safety tool for fleet safety. “You can instantly see where all your trucks, vans, or cars are located and their current speeds… More efficient responses will also mean less temptation for drivers to exceed speed limits, especially since they know their movements can be seen. For those who have hours-of-service restrictions, GPS can be used to ensure accurate reporting and log keeping.”
Trainer killed by elephant – It’s been a tough time for animal trainers. A few weeks ago, a trainer was killed by a whale at a Florida”s SeaWorld, and last week, elephant handler Andrew Anderton was killed by Dumbo, the elephant that he trained and lived with for 15 years. The death is under investigation by OSHA, but was thought to be an accident after the elephant had a run in with sparks from an electrical wire. Animal-related occupational fatalities are more common than many might realize. Over a 6-year study period in the 1990s, the Department of Labor logged 350 animal-related fatalities.
Bullying – teen bullying has been much in the news of late, but unfortunately, this is not a phenomena that people outgrow. At Strategic HR Lawyer, Diane Pfadenhauer talks about workplace bullying.
Time lapse – At Comp Time, Roberto Ceniceros offers his nomination for strange claim of the month. OK, and while we’re on the theme of “strange,” we nominate the case of Copenhagen workers who went on strike in protest after an unusual work benefit was rescinded. You have to wonder what the safety record had been like.
10 ways to trigger a lawsuit – At HR Daily Advisor, Attorney Barbara Meister Cummins offers her picks for the 10 most lawsuit-attracting lines she hears from managers, part 1 and part 2. We’d add one that my colleague wrote about recently: “Don’t report that, you’ll screw up the safety bonus.”
Scary medical story of the week – If you think getting a computer virus in email program is bad, just wait until the hackers turn their sights to implantable medial devices. According to the MassDevice blog, hackers have already hijacked a patient support website for epileptics, MRI machines and electronic medical records. The post talks about these incidents and discusses the need for heightened security for devices with life-sustaining functions.
Scam alert – The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to consumers: Beware of health insurance scams.

Tags: , , , , , ,