Bianka Stege Senior advisor European Affairs Centre for Labour - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Presentation of project “Best practices for innovation in ergonomics in health care” EU funded project, supported by HOSPEEM/EPSU

Bianka Stege Senior advisor European Affairs Centre for Labour Relations (CAOP), Netherlands Social Dialogue Hospital Sector, Plenary Meeting, 2 December 2011, Brussels

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Centre for Labour Relations in public sector, Netherlands Who are we?

• CAOP, leading partner of project, independent NGO in the field of

industrial relations and labour market policy in the public sector in Netherlands.

• CAOP provides support and advice to social partners to improve the

quality of labour/ labour relations (“a happy employee is a productive employee”)

• CAOP offers a series of services for Dutch and European social partners:

training, workshops and support in the field of reorganisation, employee participation, labour shortages, life phase policy, social security, social integration, flexicurity, social dialogue, integrity and

• diversity. CAOP also offers legal advice concerning labour relations

issues.

• Its Board of Members consists of social partners in health, education

and public administration sector.

• The fact that the Centre represents the interest of both employers’
• rganisations as well as trade unions provides it with a unique position.

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Who? Partners in Ergonomics project

• Research Unit on Ergonomics of Posture and Movements- Foundation

Policlinico Mangiagalli, Italy, www.epmresearch.org ; a national public institute for care and scientific research connected to the University of Milan – Italy and is part of the Italian National Health Service.

• Medical Centre Alkmaar, www.mca.nl :hospital that provides ergonomics

experts

• Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland, www.ttl.fi a research
• rganisation specialised in the field of occupational health and safety. The

institute functions at the administrative sector of the Finish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and there are different regional offices

• CERPIE (Research & Development, Research Centre for Corporate

Innovation), Spain, cerpie.upc.edu ; through their agreements of continuous collaboration with public administrations and private companies they are the best-known organisation in Spain in the fields of ergonomics and occupational risk prevention

• Trade Union of the Health Service and Social Care of the Czech

Republic, osz.cmkos.cz

• Slovak Trade Union of Health and Social Services, www.sozzass.sk
• HOSPEEM
• EPSU
• ArjoHuntleigh-> sponsor

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Divers partners make a strong team!

In short, our team consist of (European) Social partners, policy makers, research institutes, training institutes, experts in ergonomics, hospitals, sponsor An unique combination for developing a risk prevention culture in ergonomics in the health care sector by creating a social dialogue and providing training

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Objectives project

Our project contributes to the following:

• implementing the Council Directive 90/269/EEC of 1990
• n the minimum health and safety requirements for the

manual handling of loads where there is a risk of back injury to workers.

• developing a risk prevention culture in ergonomics in

the health care sector,

• which again leads to the improvement of working

conditions and quality of care.

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Improving working conditions by our (social) partners

• Directive 90/269/EEC indicates that manual handling with risk of back

injury for workers should be avoided whenever reasonably possible. Most EU Member States have implemented the directive to some degree across different sectors.

• Nevertheless, especially in the health care sector using the right

methods to avoid manual handling remains limited, difficult and very specific in nature. This is partly due to the very unique characteristics

• f the ‘load’, i.e. a patient.
• In addition, it appears that progress in health care is slow, whereas

demographic trends underline the need for rapid implementation in

• rder to:
• be prepared for aging and more vulnerable workforce
• cope with the shortages of nurses across Europe
• be prepared for an increasing aging population and thus an increase

in the number of those in need of care

• cope with the rising costs of health care
• reply preventively to problems of overweight and obesity

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How? Activities

• Peer learning: Our core team of 3 partners (FI, IT, NL) provided

training and information exchange to 3 participating partners (CZ,ES, SK). All coming from very different national health care systems

• Our team of experts provided training and training material

(guidelines/instruments) during a workshop in Prague in February 2010 on “Best practices in ergonomics health care: challenges for a broader implementation”

• We invited 15 representatives from the Czech Republic, Slovak

Republic and Spain each (trade unions, employers federations, labour inspectorates, government representatives, hospitals, nurses and professional nursing organisations, ergonomic practitioners , occupational physicians, occupational therapists)

• Workshop focused on the situation of ergonomics in the health care

sector in these participating countries (questionnaire was prepared on forehand)

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Activities, ctd

• Participants were trained in groups following a tandem structure ES-IT

& FI-SK & NL-CZ

• Guidelines and “best practices” on patient handling and lifting

methods from different countries were discussed in small working groups

• Follow-up actions after this first workshop:
• Implementation meetings in Spain with different stakeholders
• E-learning training done by Finish Institute of Occupational Health

for Slovak experts

• One day pilot session in hospital in Prague in order to test the

Dutch instrument/guidelines and to do a risk assessment Final conference in The Hague, NL, in November to present project

• utcomes among partners, larger public, other interested

international experts (SE, GE, USA)

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Outcomes

• Country specific guidelines/ material for CZ/SK/ES were prepared and

translated into the country language

• Translation of Dutch, Finish and Italian methods in English
• Stakeholders trained
• Awareness raised by social partners importance of process (e.g.

Trade Unions in CZ/SK sent out invitations all stakeholders as a result the Ministry of Education, Labour Inspectorate participated and prioritise the patient handling on their agenda

• Linking stakeholders in ergonomics at national level (not only policy

makers, but also practitioners)

• Creation of active network: set the first (important) steps for a fruitful

cooperation leading to a mutual improvement of working conditions in health care

• Report under preparation

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Future?

• Dissemination of results through (websites) EPSU/ HOSPEEM/ OSHA/

partners

• European policy framework: EC is working on new initiative on

ergonomics which might result in a legislative action that will replace Council Directive 90/269/EEC on manual handling and Council Directive 90/270/EEC on work with display screen equipment

• International policy framework: our core team members are working
• n standardisation through ISO TR 12296 “Ergonomics - Manual

handling of people in the healthcare sector”

• Wish expressed by all partners for deepening and widening of the

project results in follow-op project: to continue implementation of guidelines/ instruments in CZ/SK

• Widening future project towards other interested countries (so far

Sweden, Germany)

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Thank you for your attention

• Any questions?
• Want to join our future project? Good ideas/ national

sponsors are welcome! Bianka Stege: b.stege@caop.nl Tel: 0031-6-11387787

• www.caop.nl