Nurses from occupational health care settings around the world, interpreting the theme “Communication, Health Care, and the Community,” presented papers at the First International Conference on Occupational Health Nursing in Edinburgh, Scotland in October, 1986. In keeping with AAOHN's commitment to an international perspective, this article is Part II of a five part series of articles that will be printed in the AAOHN JOURNAL. Next month, Part III of the series will feature, “Occupational Health Nursing World Wide.”
Background: Education and experience are important components in the ability of occupational health nurses (OHNs) to promote high-quality care and competence. OHNs will increasingly require the skills and knowledge to base care on best evidence, to use critical thinking and demonstrate advanced leadership and decision-making skills to develop and enhance services in a more complex and diverse occupational healthcare environment.Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify the needs for professional development of the OHN in the occupational health setting.Method: An explorative, descriptive, contextual generic and qualitative research method was used in this study. The purposive sampling method was used as the OHNs surveyed described their personal need for professional development in the occupational health setting. Data was collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews. Eight interviews were done by an interviewer who held a doctoral degree in community health nursing and a qualification in occupational health and was affiliated with a private occupational health institution at the time of the study. The interviews were conducted during August 2012.Results: The OHNs reported that professional development needs have to be identified by the OHNs. Short courses need to be designed by training institutions and should be attended by the OHNs to improve their operational functioning on a day-to-day basis in the occupational health setting. The OHNs experienced that their role and function in the workplace were not valued by their managers. The results of this study revealed four major themes, namely constraints hindering the OHN in developing professionally, positive aspects identified by the OHNs regarding the need for professional development, professional development needs of the OHN and suggestions of how to meet the OHNs' professional development needs.Conclusion: There is a need for OHNs to identify their professional development needs and recommendations were made to meet these needs.
Background: As of today, there is no unified health information system that registers and systematizes the results of periodic medical examinations of workers exposed to occupational hazards in the Russian Federation. Our objective was to examine the results of periodic medical examinations in the Sverdlovsk Region over a five-year period. Materials and methods: We reviewed medical reports and conclusions issued by regional health facilities in 2015–2019 and submitted to the Regional Occupational Health Center of the Yekaterinburg Medical Research Center for Prophylaxis and Health Protection in Industrial Workers, and analyzed completeness and timeliness of their submission. Results: We established that occupational health assessment based on the results of periodic medical examinations is complicated by late and incomplete data reporting by healthcare facilities of the Sverdlovsk Region. Conclusions: Our findings prove the importance of creating a “Periodic Medical Examination” subsystem of the unified state health information system. Providing access to standardised results of periodic medical examinations based on a single digital platform to all professional participants of the national occupational health system will enable data recording, analysis and assessment at the interregional and intersectoral levels, as well as at the level of business entities, and facilitate their use for the purposes of workers’ health risk management. Timeliness of reporting and completeness of date entry in the “Periodic Medical Examination” subsystem (or a Federal Registry of Periodic Medical Examinations) may be monitored and verified by local Rospotrebnadzor bodies to be connected to the unified state health information systems of constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
Traditional and Modern Medicine in Worker Health Care