Health Information Management.

You are the Director of Health Information Management. Recently, you recently hired five new staff members and have received several inquiries about workstation and equipment adjustments. Staff is complaining about physical limitations with the department layout, spacing, and shortage of adjustable chairs, among other concerns.

To address the potential safety concerns, you discuss with each staff member individually. The focus of your discussion is on function and related physical requirements to perform the job. You also ask their opinions for adjusting the work environment to prevent injuries or other potential stressors. You present the results to your supervisor in hopes of budget allocation to fix the safety issues.

Instructions

You are asked to complete a safety review of your department. The supervisor asks that your review include a review of potential hazards, considerations for ergonomics, environmental concerns, job function requirements, and impact on employee retention. She is also requesting a checklist as a preventable measure of how you plan to evaluate ongoing safety concerns.

Provide a summary of ergonomics and importance for health information management department functions.

Identify potential hazards in the department.

Discuss how equipment can be ergonomically incorrect in HIM, and your recommendation for workstations and chairs to be correct.

Explain how ergonomics can play a role in employee retention.

A checklist that can be routinely used for safety checks.

Develop a schedule of when you will check on the performance of the equipment (workstations, chairs, scanners, fax machines, computer printers, etc.) to make sure these are being checked on a regular basis. Also include fire extinguishers, fire alarms, smoke detectors as well as locks on doors.