Occupational health nurses seek out problems in dangerous workplaces and make plans to prevent health disasters from happening. Their work may involve investigating injury claims, providing direct care to patients or reevaluating safety training for your workers. The main duties and responsibilities of an occupational health nurse (OHA) are vast and widely needed in many work environments.
Their Main Duties
An occupational health nurse (OHA) is primarily responsible for identifying dangers in the workplace and developing plans to prevent injury and illness. This nurse investigates cases of incidents that occurred as a result of unsafe designs in the workplace. An OHA recommends changes to increase safety in any feature, whether it’s to increase dim lighting or repair broken flooring.
These nurses may offer to improve the building systems that employees use to work or change their safety practices. They consider the wide range of work habits and human behaviors that could lead to a disaster. They identify the reasons why accidents or injuries occur, determine the causes and connect the problems to individual work habits.
The Goal of Prevention
Occupational health nurses develop preventative plans that are unique to each workplace. They show their clients the main reasons for an accident and create strategic plans on how to prevent recurrences. In addition to their strong medical backgrounds, these nurses have extensive experience in identifying, assessing and resolving problems in a variety of different work environments. They present their facts to the business’s management team and become major sources for changes in the ways that workplace health and safety are addressed.
Their Medical Backgrounds
OHAs are registered nurses (RNs) or registered practical nurses (RPNs) with nursing backgrounds. They have years of hands-on, clinical experience in dealing with accident-related injuries and illnesses. They may provide emergency services to injured workers in the hospital or before they arrive in the ER.
Some OHAs have provided emergency services in remote work buildings that were located far away from medical facilities. There are occupational health nurses may be relocated to work near mines or in remote areas where dangerous projects are being undertaken. Overall, their main duties are to provide an additional layer of support for industrial workers and employers who need to make safety a top priority.
The various dangers in a workplace cannot be underestimated. An occupation like mining, foresting or manufacturing may require the services of an occupational health nurse. These nurses develop safety plans for employers and teach employees about new solutions to solve major problems to improve the integrity of the workplace.