Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9505020003
SECTION: NURSES PAGE: N-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH COX
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The nurse who manages Roanoke City's Employee Health Services, the coordinator of occupational health for the Lewis-Gale Clinic and a nurse with Carilion Occupational Health who works at Vinton's Precision Fabrics Group cite business' recognition of this field's value as the reason for the growth.
Marquita Brown, a registered nurse who is certified in occupational health, started the city's program 10 years ago. She said she did it because it was a rare challenge in nursing, to be able to start something new. At first, Brown described her quarters as a small closet, but now the program is located in three rooms in the Municipal Building and it has been proposed to move it to the Public Works Building.
Brown's average work day is about 10 hours, she said. She is looking forward to a new facility with a exam rooms and space for a lab. And according to Brown, the city has just hired a physician to help out three times a week.
"Care management is a big issue. Our primary focus is preventative medicine and trying to contain costs,'' she said, adding that she does physicals for new employees, lab work that includes a 40-test blood panel, tuberculosis tests for inmates in the city jail, and takes blood pressures and hands out supplies.
But that's only scratching the surface. A good deal of any occupational health nurse's job is paperwork, OSHA training, counseling employees in healthy lifestyle changes . . .
"There has been a major change,'' she said, adding there are more than 15,000 occupational health nurses in the United States, and 350 in Virginia.
Brown is immediate past president of the Virginia State Association of Occupational Health Nurses, and is now second vice-president. She also is involved in the local Blue Ridge association as well as the American Health Association. From a local, state and national level, she can see the growth of this field. "Preventative medicine is a key, and that's the beauty of occupational health nursing,'' she said. It entails education, screening and health promotion.
The city has a weekly Weight Watchers class, as well as blood pressure screenings, EKGs, hearing and visual testing. "City Manager [Bob] Herbert has been quoted as saying I have saved the city 10 times what they pay me annually,'' she said.
Ginger Lebow, coordinator of occupational health at the Lewis-Gale Clinic, said she started the clinic's program four-and-a-half years ago. At the time, she was the only person in the department.
Now there are 17 full- and part-time employees. This program places nurses directly with companies in the area as well as offers a mobile unit "that's about the size of a Greyhound bus,'' said Lebow.
Whereas traditional nurses in businesses always saw the sick or injured employees, the occupational nurse of 1995 is more of a resource person, according to Lebow.
A nurse in this role would audit medical bills, do on-the-job OSHA monitoring, work with the safety director to resolve problems, monitor absenteeism, treat injuries or illnesses, and reintegrate people who have been off the job for a while.
"More and more companies are dependent upon occupational health nurses to manage heath care for their employees. I'm sure the occupational health nurse pays for herself, and more,'' said Lebow.
The Lewis-Gale Clinic's mobile unit is a way to accomplish massive testing quickly. It offers risk scans, audio scans and screenings for cholesterol and other lab work, drug analysis and D.O.T. physicals.
It's convenient, on the job site, and companies are charged per person.
"In the past, I don't think companies realized the benefit of preventative medicine,'' said Lebow, adding that the growth of this nursing field is due to companies realizing the cost effectiveness of healthy employees.
In Mary Margaret Kopp's office at Precision Fabrics Group in Vinton there is a small card taped to the wall. "If you want to make a difference, go ahead,'' it says.
She has acted upon that saying, leaping feet first into a field with which she feels empathy and strong ties. Her father worked in a manufacturing company in Illinois. She said she remembers how tired and discouraged the workers would be, and how there wasn't any energy left at the end of the day to enjoy life.
To her, nursing was a calling, and although she claims to have been given only a few gifts in life, "I've got them real good,'' she said.
Her supervisor, Elaine Gill, director of Carilion Occupational Health, said Kopp knows what strengths she has, and she uses them to benefit this company.
The weaving plant's jobs, said Kopp, are stressful, demanding, and some have risks involved.
"Part of my responsibility is to enhance the employees' ability to do a good job. If people have their energies strung out with peripheral concerns, how much energy is going to be given to keeping their fingers from being smashed?''
In other words, Kopp is not a Band-Aid-type person. She's a big believer in follow-up, saying she never felt that it was effective to identify a problem and then drop the ball. She dispenses information, teaching stretching exercises, and files accident reviews done in conjunction with management.
"Our nurses don't stay in the first-aid room, file claims and put on Band-Aids. They're there to make a difference,'' said Gill. She helped start Carilion's occupational health department in 1985. Currently, they service 11 different companies with on-site nurses. She said they have 35 flex-time nurses and a support staff of 10 employees.
Kopp says the statistics prove occupational health has made a difference.
"If you compare data as far as insurance costs of 15 years ago with the present, you can see a reduction in lifestyle-related claims. I can say we have contributed to this.''
by CNB