Occupational Health Coordinating Group Advisory Cmte

American College/Occupatnl/Environmt Med, Elk Grove Village IL

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): ACOEM's Occupational Health Advisory Committee (OH AC) intends to convene a planning conference to build on its past work in developing and implementing an Occupational Health Coordinating Group (OH-CG). The overall goal of the OH-CG is to receive, provide, and analyze high quality information on threats, vulnerabilities, opportunities, and steps to improve the protection of workers and their environments. The OH-CG will enhance the capabilities of the occupational health system to protect people at their place of work from terrorism and similar threats. It will accomplish this by linking occupational health professionals with other agencies (i.e., the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). An OH-CG will provide prompt alerts, access to early warning and event information, and an opportunity to discuss and delve into the subject with experts in real time within a secure mode. Members of the Committee represent the spectrum of occupational health practice, including academic medical centers, military medicine, community-based occupational health clinic and consulting practice, corporate medical directors, industrial hygiene, and occupational health nursing. The goal of this meeting will be for the OH AC to continue developing the parameters for the first pilot program for the OHCG (e.g., requirements, content to include). It is intended for Pilot #1 to test the functionality of Category 1 data, Category 2 data, and other functionality issues (e.g., structure of overall site and small, medium, and large company needs). Category 1 data is defined as event-specific information-high immediacy (life threatening) and not immediately life threatening. Category 2 data is defined as information that is not event-related and is reference information on prevention, preparedness, risk assessment and mitigation, and recommended response methods and treatment protocols. The Advisory Committee will present the proceedings from this meeting at ACOEM's annual State-of-the-Art Conference in Fall 2005.