Posts Tagged ‘bullying’

Fresh Health Wonk Review & assorted news briefs

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

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“strange,” we nominate the case of Copenhagen workers who went on strike in protest after an unusual work benefit was rescinded.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.

News roundup: Cavalcade of Risk, comments, lunch breaks, and quick takes

Thursday, June 22nd, 2006

Risk roundup – The second issue of Cavalcade of Risk is posted over at It’s Just Money. LA Money Guy is the host, and he’s assembled an eclectic array of posts ranging from drug caps to hurricane insurance. Check it out!
Comments – Our apologies if you’ve ever left a comment that didn’t get published here. When emptying several thousand spams from our spam trap this past weekend, we were dismayed to find about a dozen legitimate comments from you, our readers, that had been automatically routed to the spam file. Part of the reason we re-designed the site a few months ago was to incorporate a better comment filter – we get hundreds of trash comments each week, some quite vile. We thought things were working out quite nicely, but realize now that it’s been a little more aggressive than we intended. Our sincere apologies – we look forward to and appreciate your comments! We rescued about a dozen comments and rightfully restored them to the posts where they belong. We made further adjustments to the filter and hope that will do it, but we’ll be checking more carefully going forward so that we don’t lose any of your comments.
Lunch breaks – Are your employees covered by workers compensation when they are out of the office on a lunch break? Yes, according to a new ruling by the Maine Supreme Court as reported by Mark Hoffman in Business Insurance. In this case, the employee slipped on icy steps as she entered the building. The insurer contested the case on the basis of the going and coming rule, which holds that employees aren’t usually covered on their routes to and from work. However, courts often award compensation to workers who are injured in company parking lots or other areas in or around the workplace. (See our prior post on Exception to the “going and coming” rule: operating premises.) In this case, there was an additional twist: the employer was renting the office, and part of the rental contract stipulated that the landlord would keep the walkways clear of ice. Regardless, the employee’s injury would still be compensable. If the employer or insurer would like to try to recoup the costs from the third party through subrogation, that’s another matter. (Read the full court decision: Robyn D. Fournier v. Aetna, Inc., et al.)
Meatpacking hellConfined Space brings our attention to a recent series by Bob Herbert in the New York Times reporting on the brutal and dangerous working conditions at Smithfield Packing Company in Tar Heel, North Carolina. Because these are subscription only articles, we’ll link to Jordan’s two posts: Where the workers come last and Walking Into The Pit Of Hell. (See also: Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants). Now the workers are taking their case for safety and basic worker rights the public.
Medical blogs – If you enjoy learning about emerging medical technologies, then Medgadget is the blog for you. There’s always some fascinating matter to be found. And for another interesting blog by a medical professional, check out the always fresh Emergiblog, a blog we found when Kim, a nurse who runs the blog, left a comment in one of our posts. Today, she kicks off the first edition of Change of Shift, a nursing blog carnival.
Quick takes