Page 24 - MetalForming-Feb-2018-issue

Safety Update
The Opioid Crisis
and Workplace Challenges
with your health-plan provider
about a comprehensive plan
that covers inpatient and
outpatient services. Employ-
ees with opioid addiction
often benefit from medica-
tion-assisted treatment (MAT), which reduces the cravings for opioids and allows employees to work while in treatment.
The nation’s growing opioid epidemic is presenting serious workplace challenges. This epidemic involves the use of prescription opioid (pain) medications and illicit drugs, including heroin and illegally manufactured fentanyl.
A survey recently released by the National Safety Council reveals that more than 70 percent of workplaces feel the negative effects of opioid abuse. Nearly 40 percent of employers surveyed said that employees are missing work due to abuse of painkillers, with roughly the same percentage reporting employee abuse of the drugs on the job. And, opioid misuse impacts much more than workplace performance: Overdoses killed more than 64,000 Americans in 2016, an increase of 21 percent over 2015, according to federal officials.
It’s important to remember, stresses Happ, that employees struggling with opioid misuse or substance addiction are not weak or morally corrupt. Drug addiction is a disease and needs to be treated and talked about like any other disease—with com- passion and quality care.
Despite the prevalence of substance use and addiction in businesses across the country, only a small percentage of those with opioid or other substance-use disorders ask for help or receive it. That’s costing employers about $10 billion annually due to absenteeism, according the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Wireless E-Stop System
Given these statistics, Dr. Deborah Happ, senior vice president for New Directions Behavioral Health, Kansas City, MO, presents four ways that employers can address opioid dependence and substance addiction:
Laird debuted its Safe-E-Stop wireless e-stop system for shutting down production lines. The offering can be integrated into existing hard-wired e-stop systems to save precious seconds and avert worker injuries and fatailities, as well as equipment damage. Nearly 5000 workers were fatally injured in industrial accidents in 2015, according to the Occupational Safety Health Administration, a statistic that stresses the
1) Create a nonstigmatizing workplace. One way to influence more people to seek help is to convince them that getting treatment is the smartest thing to do. By talking about addiction like any other disease, employers can silence the stigma and allow employees to realize that it is okay to ask for help. It’s equally critical that owners and managers send the message that their workplace is a safe place, and that they are here to help.
need for safety improvements. The system provides the
2) Equip staff to recognize the signs of addiction. It’s important that management and staff be trained on the early signs of opioid and substance addiction—irritability, poor concentration and declining performance—so that they can intervene before the situation deteriorates. Train managers to address performance issues, because that often opens up the dialog to talk about sensitive matters.
• Ethernet/IP port on the machine safety device (MSD) that can be used to fully report the status of actuated wireless e-stops to operations personnel.
3) Offer support to employees and family members. Just as an employer would with an employee who has a medical condition such as cancer or heart disease, offer nonjudgmental support to employees with a substance-use disorder. Remember, employees who have family members struggling with substance addiction suffer at work, too. Consider providing an employee assistance program (EAP), which can be an effective first step for employees and their dependents to initiate support for nonmedical prescription drug problems, and can offer counseling and referral services; conduct substance abuse evaluations or connect an employee to a qualified substance-abuse professional.
• As many as five personal
safety devices (PSDs) that can be simultaneously linked to the MSD, permitting multiple operators to work independently or collaboratively to oversee an operation or solve a problem.
4) Help employees access treatment. Ensure that employees have access to quality treatment for substance addiction. Consult
• Safety Integrity Level 3 protection.
• Support of frequency bands 450, 915 and 433 MHz.
• PSDs with rechargeable Li-ion batteries having 12-hr.
22 MetalForming/February 2018
www.metalformingmagazine.com
New Directions Behavioral Health: www.ndbh.com
following:
• Continuous status indi-
cators with LED and LCD dis- plays.
• Ability via the MSD to command a stop if an e-stop on any of the linked PSDs is activated, at which time all PSDs are notified of the stop condition, the machine is shutdown, and the system identifies the PSD responsible for the stop.
• PSDs with visual and haptic (vibration) warning systems for conditions such as low battery and low RF signal designed to allow workers to move about the area (within a 100-m line- of-sight range of the MSD).
operating life and two-hr. rapid charge.
Laird: www.wireless-estop.com