Best Practice of Occupational Health and Safety Management in High-end Industries
Keywords:
Occupational health and safety, occupational health nurse, competency, high-end industry, best practiceAbstract
Occupational health and safety management contributes to reducing workplace accidents, while strengthening workers’ health and safety, all leading to reduced costs and enhanced productivity. The main objective of this descriptive research was to study the effects of occupational health and safety management, key success factors, and registered nurses’ competency in the workplace on occupational health nursing services. The study was conducted in five high-end industries that had received the national quality award in occupational health and safety management. The thirty-two participants were stakeholders in occupational health and safety management at the workplace, and consisted of executives, safety officer professionals, registered nurses, and workers’ representative. The participants were selected by snowball sampling. Focus groups, in-depth interviews, walk-through surveys on the production line and in the first-aid room were used for data collection. Content analysis was used to analyze the data.
The study found that the workplaces had obvious health policies, missions, and corporate values, and communicated these to all levels of workers. Furthermore, the workplaces had to create a safety culture by using the occupational health and safety management system, sharing data and lessons learned in the organization, and teamwork. Proactive and reactive work practices covered occupational health, safety, the environment, and health care management. As expected, the registered nurses in the workplace showed competency in occupational health service delivery. These results can guide workplace occupational health and safety management by starting with executives’ awareness, converting workplace health policy into action based on international standards, encouraging participation by all levels of workers, strengthening health knowledge, encouraging stakeholders’ co-operation, and recruiting nurses with occupational health training.
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