For Immediate Release

August 27, 2010 – Everett, WA.  On August 26^th, 2010 Everett Washington’s Kimberly–Clark (K-C) pulp and tissue manufacturing facility hit a tremendous safety target.  On this day Kimberly –Clark surpassed 1,000,000 safe man-hours without incurring a “K-C Recordable” injury.

This is a milestone that had never before been achieved at this facility and that makes this K-C location a standout amongst the company’s plants across the country. It is a direct result of its employees’ and management’s dedication to living their safety mantra, “Home Safe, Together We Can.”

Per Chris Isenberg, the paper mill’s manager, “In 2007 we averaged a recordable injury every 40,000 hours.  By attaining 1,000,000 safe hours, we have stopped 25 team members from sustaining significant injury (1,000,000 safe hours divided by 40,000 hours).”

In addition to an excellent safety culture and sustained efforts in safety awareness, a significant factor in K-C reaching this goal is its unique partnership with InjuryFree, a locally-based, national firm that provides at-the-jobsite, injury prevention programs for large industry.  InjuryFree’s  “Employee Maintenance Centers”, or EMCs, provide employees with easy access to solutions for aches and pains before they develop into work place injuries.  The EMC also serves as the mechanism by which employees proactively maintain their strength, flexibility and “fitness for duty” so they can do their jobs safely and enjoy their personal lives, “InjuryFree!”

To celebrate this momentous occasion, K-C held a barbecue for its employees and their families, complete with live music and activities for the kids.  Good times were had by all.

Of the three K-C facilities in North America with an InjuryFree program, the Everett, WA facility is the second K-C location to receive this award in the last 13 months.

InjuryFree, the country’s leading innovator of work place injury prevention services, provides cost-effective health and safety solutions for the workplace. InjuryFree’s products and services successfully help employees live, work and retire pain-free.

An InjuryFree article posted in

How to Build a Successful, Sustainable Ergonomic Team

Workplace injuries and their associated costs particularly are burdensome as their impacts are wide ranging. For businesses, the impacts are experienced in areas of finance, productivity, competitiveness and employee morale. For workers, household finances and quality of life are affected. In 2011, and in the next two decades, these impacts have the potential to be greatly magnified as an increasing number of America’s baby boomers approach…continue reading at ehstoday.com.

Sound Ergonomics Prevent Injuries While Handling Heavy, Awkward Materials

Ergonomics is the science concerned with designing the workplace, tools and equipment for maximum efficiency, user comfort and safety. The goal of ergonomics is to maximize productivity without compromising employee health.

This goal is accomplished by looking specifically at how the human being interacts with the physical work environment and by improving upon its design and function.

The goal of maximizing productivity has always been intuitive enough. Increased productivity typically equates to increased profits and a healthier bottom line. In the last two decades however, the employee-health focus of ergonomics has increased in significance, particularly as the costs of employer sponsored health insurance premiums and work injury claims has increased. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), manual materials handling is the primary source of compensable work injuries amongst the American workforce. Furthermore, 80% of these injuries involve the lower back and occur, at least in part, as a result of bending at the waist.

When looking at the question, “why do injuries occur?” it can be said that all injuries ultimately occur due to a breakdown in one or more of four key areas; Bio-physics, Ergonomics, Education and Awareness. While ergonomics is the focus of this writing, a brief description of the other areas is worthwhile. Bio-physics pertains to the physical attributes every worker must possess to be able to tolerate the physical stresses of their jobs without incurring injury. Education relates to whether or not employees have the knowledge and training to perform the essential functions of their jobs safely, and awareness is the ever-present consciousness around safety protocols and procedures for the purpose of safety and risk reduction.

For the facilities manager, safety in logistics and materials handling departments, like any other department, is a significant concern. In these environments especially, workers are frequently exposed to high physical stresses. Whether it is lifting, pushing, pulling or driving fork trucks, these are workers that can be considered “at-risk” simply by virtue of the stresses they must endure. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Dept. of Labor), in 2002, operators, fabricators and laborers accounted for nearly 40% of all injuries and illnesses. For the same time period, the back was involved in 24% of all non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses, and workers with back or neck injuries lost an average of seven days of work. Per the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), back injuries cost the nation between 20 to 50 billion dollars per year and according to American Safety Institute, back injuries account for nearly 60% of all workers compensation costs. Also reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, sprains, strains and tears account for nearly three quarters of all the musculo-skeletal disorders that result in days away from work.

Given the scope of the problem, sound ergonomics can certainly reduce work place risk and help prevent injuries. To begin, manual materials handling can be hazardous simply due to the weight of materials being moved. Very often objects are simply too heavy or too large and cumbersome for one person to move safely. The simple solutions are to have two people move these types of materials, reinforce lifting mechanics and to use available equipment to assist with these tasks. Additionally, attaching handles to heavier, cumbersome items makes lifting them more manageable as well. Resources for safe lifting parameters include the NIOSH lifting equation, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) lifting tables, and the Snook and Ciriello Psychophysical tables.

Other common causes of injury with manual materials handling are improper stacking, storing and securing of materials. Prevention solutions in these situations primarily include education and awareness training, creation and enforcement of established safety procedures, and the use of ergonomically correct, safe, storage systems.

The use of personal protective equipment is also a key piece in any safety and ergonomics plan. For lifting, forearm, wrist and hand protection should be worn when working with loads that have sharp edges. Safety shoes that provide protection for the toes and instep areas of the feet should also be worn.

As part of the personal protective equipment discussion it is worth noting that the use of low back support belts is not research-supported. After completing a systematic review of published, peer-reviewed, scientific literature, NIOSH concluded that there was insufficient evidence for the use of low back support belts as an effective means of preventing lifting-related low back injuries. Additionally, while there is no concrete evidence that using these belts is harmful, there is some research showing that low back support belts can provide workers with a false sense of security that leads to their lifting of unsafe loads, exposing their low backs to greater stress that what can be safely tolerated.

While the use of mechanical equipment to move loads reduces the risk of sprains and strains, it creates other risks. Pallet jacks, fork trucks, cranes and hoists can all be dangerous due to their weight alone. There are also dangers relating to overloading these tools with too much weight and operating them at speed, particularly fork trucks. Education and training in the proper use of these types of equipment, their load ratings and safe operating speeds are therefore critical in mitigating risks associated with their use.

As it pertains to fork lifts specifically, there are numerous at risk joints associated with using this piece of equipment in particular. Among them are the low back, neck and shoulder. For the low back, the prolonged sitting associated with driving truck is a high risk task. Sitting is inherently a position of being subtly bent forward at the waist and when the added stress of repeatedly driving over jarring dock plates in some environments is considered, the potential for low back problems is increased. Ergonomic solutions for the low back include the use of supplemental lumbar support in the fork truck’s seat, and ensuring the seat is adjusted to an appropriate distance form the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals. Another strategy for minimizing low back pain is requiring periodic breaks that involve getting of the fork lift, walking around for two to three minutes, and performing 8 to 10 standing back bends with the palms of the hands positioned on the upper portion of the buttocks. This simple exercise goes a long way towards mitigating the negative effect of prolonged sitting and driving. As is the case with the low back, perhaps the most important ergonomic intervention for the neck and shoulder is ensuring the seat is not too far away from the steering wheel. If too far away the operator will have to reach further forward with his arms, and crane his neck forward to reach the steering wheel. Prolonged forward head positioning, also a common problem for computer users, puts undue stress on the joints and discs in the neck and leads to neck pain.

Finally, materials handling encompasses a myriad of situations and work environments. Just as there are many risk factors associated with such a broad spectrum of variables, there are many opportunities for reducing risk via ergonomic intervention. Among the most valuable assets that can be used to identify ergonomic risk are employees. After all, who better to point out hazards, trouble zones and work factors that cause pain than the people performing the high tasks and functions? Employees are amongst the most valuable assets any company has and should always be an integral part of safety, ergonomic and prevention strategies.

On June 3rd, InjuryFree will present the workshop, “The BEEA+ Paradigm: Identifying and Reducing Risk” incorporating the principles of the BEEA+ Paradigm: Bio-Physics, Ergonomics, Education and Awareness in industrial and….click to continue reading the workshop news release or register for the workshop by visiting the registration page.

We hope you will attend!

Workplace injuries are a burden to businesses and employees in all sectors. Economic and human impacts affect companies as well as employees and their families. On the economic side, for example, $55.3 billion was paid out in workers’ compensation claims in 2005, according to NSC. This figure represents only direct costs, which include medical and lost-time expenditures, costs that insurance covers. Also significant are the indirect or soft costs associated with overtime, decreased productivity, worker replacement, investigations, lower morale, increased absenteeism, administration and claims management. According to Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. in 2001, for every dollar spent on injury-related direct costs, $3 to $5 are spent on indirect costs. These costs are absorbed by the company, typically on the site or local level.The impact on the injured worker can be equally painful. The inability to work brings with it economic hardship, strain on the family, psychosocial implications and, on occasion, the fear-avoidance behavior that can negatively impact return to work. Fear-avoidance is the concept whereby the injured employee, unable to work for a period of time, develops a fear, rational or irrational, of returning to work after injury.

What Can Be Done?

To begin, let’s look at what has been done. Many companies establish safety departments, safety teams and implement safety engineering. The focus of these efforts is geared toward prevention and often consists of education, awareness, ergonomics, PPE and engineering. While it is certainly true that safety programs and safety engineering pay dividends, it is reasonable to suggest that no company has developed an impenetrable immunity to workplace injuries. Historically, the response to workplace injuries has been largely reactive in nature. These reactions include in-house incident investigations, environmental and ergonomic fixes, and opening of workers’ compensation claims. Additionally, reactive injury rehabilitation in the healthcare system often fails workers and companies by not returning injured employees to work with the ability to tolerate their job’s physical stresses without reinjury. As it relates to safety, prevention and workplace risk reduction, it is employees’ knowledge and awareness that has traditionally been targeted.

What has often been overlooked is the concept of biophysics. Biophysics relates to the physical attributes employees must possess to safely perform the physical tasks of their jobs without incurring injury. Biophysical characteristics include muscle strength and flexibility, joint range of motion and endurance. Simply put, the stronger and more flexible the employee, the greater the level of physical stresses that employee will tolerate without experiencing an injury. Companies spend tremendous resources to maintain their equipment, tools and facilities. Preventive maintenance of these items helps ensure that productivity is maximized and that interruptions in business are kept to a minimum. What about employees? Should they not be maintained as well? Would maintaining employees not yield similar benefits to those achieved by maintaining equipment, tools and facilities?

Employee Maintenance

An emerging focus of safety in recent years has been on just that—employee maintenance. Employee maintenance is the mechanism by which employees’ biophysical traits are addressed to identify risk, to improve musculoskeletal health and to address an often overlooked area of injury prevention potential. With strength and flexibility testing, employees’ deficits and limitations in these areas can be identified as part of a risk identification strategy. Once identified, these risk areas can be addressed with joint-specific strengthening and conditioning exercises, as well as targeted flexibility routines. Pain is another area in which employee maintenance has a preventive impact. No employee is immune to occasional aches and pains, work related or otherwise. While they are a part of life, the injuries into which they can develop, if left unchecked, should not be considered a normal cost of doing business.

Employee maintenance’s function as it relates to pain is to ensure that employees’ symptoms of discomfort do not develop into more significant problems such as injuries and costly claims. An effective employee maintenance program ultimately creates a mechanism and provides the convenience by which employees find it easy to be proactive about their musculoskeletal health, and their aches and pains. In making the case for employee maintenance as part of a safety program, consider that the types of injuries this program is specifically meant to address have an impact on companies’ bottom lines. According to NSC, the number of workers’ compensation claims in 2006 relating to “sprains, strains and overexertion” injuries far exceeded those relating to “macrotraumas.” In fact, such injuries accounted for more than 1.4 million claims while the top three macrotrauma injuries, contusions, fractures and cuts/lacerations, each accounted for between 250,000 and 350,000 claims. Per the same source, the 2006 direct costs for sprains, strains and overexertion injuries exceeded $25 billion while the total cost was estimated to be between $75 and $125 billion. It is these types of injuries in particular that an employee maintenance program has the greatest ability to impact.

When considering that the U.S. workforce is aging, the argument for employee maintenance becomes even more compelling. The first of the baby boomers reached age 63 in 2009. As more members of this generation approach retirement, they will comprise a greater percentage of the workforce. This will present an ever-increasing challenge to managing workplace safety, mitigating risk and preventing workplace injuries. A key to getting ahead of the curve is increasing the focus of safety and prevention programs on employee biophysics. Employee maintenance programs must ultimately become part of the forward thinking that will tackle biophysics to ensure that aging employees maintain standards of fitness for duty.

Practically speaking, for an employee maintenance program to be successful it must be appealing to and accepted by all employees. Several elements contribute to such a program’s utilization. Among them are: on-site convenience, skilled staff who serve as effective coaches for the industrial athlete, low or no cost to employees, and tools, equipment and technology that effectively reduce pain and increase musculoskeletal health. In short, an employee maintenance program must ultimately be a more attractive option than traditional healthcare. In today’s world, with ever-increasing insurance deductibles, premiums and copays, the attractiveness of the healthcare system has diminished as a mechanism for workers to obtain the care they need. The result is that employers may end up with the bill for on-the-job injuries that started as nonwork-related conditions. The question that companies must examine is, where do we spend the dollars? Do we reactively spend them on higher premiums for employee medical benefits and workers’ compensation claims, or do we proactively spend them on prevention in the form of employee maintenance? In this author’s experience, funds are far better spent on prevention programs that address employees’ biophysics.

Return to Work

As effective as an employee maintenance program is in addressing aches and pains, it cannot prevent 100% of injuries. However, when set up correctly, such a program serves a secondary function: it will address the specific needs of the injured worker returning to the job. On-site convenience is critical for an employee maintenance program to effectively double as part of a return-to-work program. For the injured worker to maximize and maintain the benefit of a healthcare-based rehabilitation program, an on-site facility becomes the mechanism by which joint-specific conditioning is continued, beyond the point where the rehabilitation program ends. Such a facility provides a seamless transition between where healthcare-based services end and return to work begins. Additionally, because employee maintenance facility staff possess a detailed understanding of the injured worker’s job, they can provide job-specific strengthening and conditioning exercises. The result is a decreased likelihood of the reinjury. Furthermore, for the injured worker who does not require time away from work but who still needs a rehabilitation solution, an on-site facility allows the employee to access rehabilitation services while at work. Far less time away from the job is needed to attend doctor and physical therapy appointments, work continues and productivity is maintained. Savings are also realized by keeping an employee’s injury rehabilitation in-house versus having it occur in the outside healthcare arena. Finally, it is widely accepted that the longer the injured worker is away from the workplace, the greater the psychosocial impact and the greater role fear-avoidance plays in delaying if not precluding the return to work.

That said, is there an inherent value to an injured worker having the rehabilitation visits occur at the jobsite? Does showing up to the jobsite for rehabilitation visits foster and maintain a sense of routine as it relates to the job being a part of the injured worker’s identity? Does going to the jobsite for rehabilitation visits have a psychological impact on the injured worker’s confidence that s/he will ultimately return to work?

These questions are difficult to answer with measurability. However, given the potential costs associated with returning to work being delayed or not occurring, these are questions that must be considered. When used effectively an employee maintenance facility is an integral element of the return-to-work solution for the injured employee. More importantly, employee maintenance as a prevention mechanism cannot be overlooked. Benefits of such a program include reduced workplace risk, fewer workplace injuries, decreased absenteeism, increased productivity and improved employee morale. The product of these benefits is a solid return on investment, more robust bottom line

Benjamin Harris is a licensed physical therapist who operates outpatient orthopedic rehabilitation centers in Washington and is the Employee Maintenance Centers’ director for InjuryFree, which specializes in on-site injury prevention, ergonomics and ergonomic management software solutions. For more information, visit www.injuryfree.com. Harris will be a presenter at ASSE’s Safety 2010 conference in Baltimore.

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Introduction

The American manufacturing industry has made significant strides over the past 50 years in the area of worker protection. Whether mandated by government agencies or by economic and human re-
sources drivers, safety programs have gone far to reduce fatalities and injuries in the workplace.

Yet further examination of the injury data available indicates that areas exist where substantial improvements may yet be made. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report for 2006, “Sprains and strains was (sic) the leading nature of injury and illness in every major industry sector.”1 Sprains, strains, microtrauma, and repetitive stress injuries contribute significantly to the overall cost of injuries in the workplace. It is in this area that significant improvements in injury reduction can be made.

This article describes the genesis and results of a focused program, called the Employee Maintenance Center, which is designed to meet four key objectives:

1. Reduce musculoskeletal injuries in the workplace
2. Reduce workers compensation and related costs
3. Identify and reduce risk
4. Increase worker productivity

In 2005, Kimberly-Clark’s Conway, Arkansas, manufacturing facility launched a pilot program with InjuryFree, Inc., to reduce musculoskeletal injuries in the workplace, particularly those injuries resulting from microtrauma and repetitive stress. After three years of continuous program operation, injuries and related costs at the Conway facility have shown a significant and steady decline. This article is a description of that three-year program and a report of its results.

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