BIOKINETIX’s Medical Ergonomists record data to extract trends and mitigate at-risk behavior in real time. This data is then utilized to develop best-practice job training that prioritizes operational efficiency and low-risk behavior.
Who are Medical Ergonomists?
Medical Ergonomists are licensed medical professionals who specialize in identifying and correcting at-risk behaviors and improper body mechanics. Medical ergonomists bring not only comprehensive instruction on how to engage in job-specific body positioning, but also an understanding of why doing so is beneficial to each employee.
By incorporating both demonstration of technique and establishing personal value, a participatory ergonomics program lends a powerful advantage to an organization when integrated into existing safety and health programs.
Among other services and capabilities, medical ergonomists will:
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- Identify trends, patterns, and behaviors to be used for job-specific education
- Trains employees on at-risk behaviors, safety techniques, and body positions
- Heightening awareness
- Ensures high-risk behaviors are recognized and mitigated in real time
What Are the Advantages of Medical Ergonomics?
While a traditional ergonomics program generally concerns improvements to the work environment, medical ergonomic programs strive to improve the fit between workers and their job tasks.
This approach recognizes that engineering controls — physical changes to the work environment — can be cost prohibitive and impractical, and that in these instances, medical ergonomics combined with regular exercise offers strategies to mitigate these risk factors as well as improve productivity and morale.
A medically-based ergonomics program approach is all about the human factor: putting workers first by taking account of their anatomical capabilities and limitations, and making sure that tasks, equipment and the environment are appropriate given these abilities. In practice, it involves ensuring that workers adopt practices that utilize proper biomechanics, leverage physiological advantages, and avoid forceful, repetitive or awkward movements. By delivering this targeted medical expertise to workers in such a way, medical ergonomists can help businesses reduce the risk of occupational injury.
Medical ergonomists possess a unique expertise that is incredibly actionable in the context of occupational health. Their training and education encompasses biomechanics, anatomy, and physiology; a comprehensive level of expertise that can be applied to mitigate ergonomic risk factors in the workplace. Medical ergonomists have the ability to evaluate the physical demands of virtually any job task from a clinical standpoint, and then use this knowledge to help workers properly utilize their bodies.
When a medical ergonomics program is utilized organizations see the following benefits:
- A more cost effective approach to ergonomic solutions
- Healthier and safer employees
- Overall boost in employee morale
- Decreased risk in employee injuries
- Reduction in compensation claims
Establishing value
Demonstrating proper ergonomic techniques is just one part of an effective approach to occupational health. Extensive expertise and skill set are what make medical ergonomists the most qualified people to explain the benefits of proper body positioning in an occupational setting.
One potentially problematic aspect of wellness programs in general is that of compliance: how must an organization ensure its employees are following these best practices on a day-to-day basis?
In the context of an ergonomics program, constant supervision to ensure individual compliance with ergonomic standards is impractical, not to mention nearly impossible for larger organizations.
Instead of strict managerial enforcement, the focus should shift toward an approach that’s proven to work: motivating employees to choose compliance. In order to bring positive, sustainable behavioral changes within the workforce, it is crucial to educate employees in such a way that they will understand the personal benefits of such behaviors.
To learn more about how medical ergonomists and ergonomics programs can help turn injury prevention and safety into a science for your business, please contact us.
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