NP Career Option: Occupational Health
Many nurse practitioners find themselves right at home in occupational health (aka employee health). NPs are a good fit for occupational health since much of it involves health education, preventative care, precise record keeping, and documentation. Occupational health settings vary among institutions. Hospitals utilize any mix of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and/or physicians. I have been working in occupational health as a nurse practitioner for the last 2 1/2 years and have become quite familiar with the setting.
What can one expect in occupational health? At the core of occupational health are workplace related injuries and their prevention. For someone working in occupational health in a hospital setting, needle stick type injuries are fairly common. Back, knee, and shoulder injuries are also frequently encountered. These happen as the result of falls, trips, and incorrect patient lifting and moving. Injuries of course, can happen to anyone working in the hospital. However, nurses, transporters, engineers and support service staff encounter the largest amount of injuries. Oftentimes, occupational health acts as a liaison between the employee and workers compensation.
While occupational health nurse practitioners treat the injuries incurred from an accident, they often focus on prevention and avoiding reoccurrence. This may take the form of performing an ergonomic evaluation of the employees workplace to identify correctable variables to prevent further injuries from occurring. Occupational health NPs may also serve on various institutional committees to examine systemic issues and getting the necessary resources to allow employees to perform their job without putting themselves at risk for injury (think recommending lift assistive devices, etc).
Occupational Health NPs also perform an initial history and physical on pre-employees to help ensure a health workforce that is able to perform the job that they are hired for. An immunization history is reviewed and any required immunizations are offered. Once employed, most state and federal regulations require hospital employees to undergo an annual screening which can vary from a full physical exam to performing a tuberculin skin test. These NPs can also find themselves performing Fit For Duty evaluations to determine if employees are under the influence of drugs/alcohol at the workplace.
Another job requirement is handling any outbreak of infectious diseases among the staff. This can happen prior to a patient being diagnosed with any highly infectious communicable disease such as tuberculosis or bacterial meningitis. Any employee exposed to these infections is usually screened and prophylaxed accordingly to prevent spread from patient to employee. Surely, prevention is paramount and emphasis should be placed on educating employees to don the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and wear it correctly. Oftentimes, occupational health staff work very closely with the Infection Control/Prevention Staff.
Finally, some occupational health NPs perform episodic care on employees. They can treat ear infections, sore throats, bronchitis, pneumonia, hypertension and diabetes for example. Depending on the institution, occupational health NPs may even run employee wellness initiatives, programs, and immunization campaigns.
As you can see, occupational health NPs must wear many hats in the course of their day. Speaking from experience, I can say that occupational health is a wonderful opportunity and a fulfilling one. Occupational health staff keep the workforce healthy so that they can care for the patients of the hospital.
For more information, check out The National Health Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) and the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN).
