Join us for a practitioners’ view of the challenging ergonomic and work health & safety issues facing workers caring for the elderly in both residential and home care facility contexts. This PD will be presented by practitioners in the industry, Steve Isam, Liz Hogan and Melissa Mitchell (host). There will be two presentations, followed by a panel discussion.
Presenters:
Steve Isam
Steve has been a CPE member of HFESA since 1973. He has worked as an ergonomics consultant for many years in a variety of different industries and areas. Approximately three years ago commenced with Mercy Health working in Aged Care as a WHS Manager. Primary role involves Work Health and Safety in Residential Aged Care (RAC) in regional Victoria and Western metropolitan Melbourne. Mercy Health has 31 RAC homes across Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland, as well as Home Care and Hospitals.
Liz Hogan
Elizabeth Hogan is the WHS Manager for Home Care in Vic, NSW, ACT and Qld at Mercy Health and Aged Care a Victorian based not-for-profit business. Elizabeth’s career in Health and Safety spans over 12 years and includes public health, disability, residential aged care, in-home care and homelessness, all in the not-for-profit sector. Earlier career experience has been in various roles in the public health sector of aged and adult crisis mental health. In the Home Care workplace where Carers provide the service to a client the most common risk is dealing with working in the client’s home environment and the remote workforce. One size doesn’t always fit all!
Host:
Melissa Mitchell
Melissa is a Registered Physiotherapist, member of HFESA and an Occupational Health and Safety Consultant who has worked over three decades to optomise Organisational Risk Management and Injury Prevention, specialising in Manual Handling risk elimination and translating the evidence base into practice. Most recently she completed a Literature Review, Guidance scan and focus groups to establish the state of knowledge on Safe Patient Handling in the Health care and Social Assistance sector. This information was prepared for the revision of the Transferring People Safely guidance for WorkSafe Victoria. Melissa project managed and provided the subject matter expertise for the Evaluation of the Victorian Nurses’ Back Injury Prevention Project 2002 for the DHS (now DHHS). As a Senior Ergonomist for WorkSafe Victoria Melissa developed regulations and guidance including SWA Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2011; trained inspectors in the promotion and enforcement of Hazardous Manual Handling Risk Management; provided expert advice and regulation across industries; and cultivated research that was able to be translated into practice. Melissa designed and implemented a Risk Management Program for non-clinical services at RMH that eliminated injuries in the participating services within two years. Melissa returned to RMH in 2019 to work with them to reduce patient handling injuries and continue to work with other public and private Health and social assistance services in Risk Management.
Programme:
7:00 – 7:30 Ergonomic and WHS issues in Residential Aged Care – Steve Isam
7:30 – 8:00 Ergonomic and WHS issues in Home Care – Liz Hogan
8:00 – 8:30 Panel Discussion – Hosted by Melissa Mitchell, with presenters Steve and Liz.
Medium: Zoom only session.
Pricing:
HFESA and AIHS Members – Free
Non Members – $30.00
We Look forward to seeing you there!
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.