On Location

My name is Kirti Salwe. Being an occupational health major, the main objective of my practice experience at Cook Children’s Hospital was to devise an ergonomic training program for the housekeeping employees of the hospital.

To best address the given task I divided it into three categories.

First:
What is the problem? Why are the employees having musculoskeletal disorders and work related injuries?

Second:
What are the factors contributing to these injuries?

Third:
What can be done to reduce these injuries?

The first and the second questions were answered using the occupational health database of the hospital. I analyzed the employee injury and illness data of these employees for the past five years to obtain injury rates in comparison to employees of the rest of the hospital. I also categorized these injuries based on the type and cause of the injuries.

The third question was addressed by spending time with the employees and observing them while they performed their daily job activities.

Videotaping these employees helped me to study the biomechanical aspects of their posture and to devise a training program to emphasize the do’s and don’ts of workplace safety.

This helped me to understand what they did incorrectly that led to work place hazards and injuries.