Advancing Workforce Health at the Department of Homeland Security Protecting Those Who Protect Us (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
7 Functional Alignment
7 Functional Alignment
Pages 201-216
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 201... ...
This chapter provides the committee's recommendations for how DHS can align critical workforce health protection functions that support mission readiness through global policies and standards that set clear expectations. THE NEED FOR FUNCTIONAL ALIGNMENT When the Chief Medical Officer (CMO)
|
From page 202... ...
needs to find a means to ensure that critical health protection functions are aligned across the department in such a manner that all component programs are resourced and appropriately implemented to meet core requirements set by the CMO. The coordination mechanisms recommended in Chapter 6 can support this objective by providing a means of obtaining component support.
|
From page 203... ...
A common life-cycle framework for approaching workforce health and resilience would provide a mechanism for ensuring that a set of disparate components can achieve the appropriate mission readiness outcomes. A life-cycle approach integrates a fragmented system and typically has the following characteristics: • clear and explicit guidelines and expectations regarding operation and performance, • a common approach for monitoring job-related mission readiness, and • a proactive framework for enhancing or restoring workforce readiness.
|
From page 204... ...
Job-related health, fitness, and resilience should be evaluated at multiple points across the employment life cycle: • preemployment or preplacement, to ensure that candidates meet physical and medical job requirements and to establish baselines for health and fitness; • periodically, to ensure that employees continue to meet physical and medical job requirements and to enable the early identification of conditions that may limit individual readiness;2 • when triggered by injury, illness, and/or noted declines in job per formance, to assess whether employees still meet physical and 1 Derived from a job task analysis validated by an occupational health professional. 2 Periodicscreening assessments may be voluntary or mandatory based on job requirements, and when mandatory, can be age-adjusted based on risk.
|
From page 205... ...
, Medical Policy and Programs Specialist at the Office of Personnel Management, a comprehensive medical evaluation and clearance program to support medical readiness would include the following elements (see Figure 7-2) : • a preplacement (postoffer)
|
From page 206... ...
As discussed in Chapter 6, the committee believes that Component Lead Medical Officers (CLMOs) should be engaged in the recommendation and validation of such standards (see Recommendation 5 on the Medical and Readiness Committee)
|
From page 207... ...
The government's role in the occupational health of contractor personnel has been an ongoing issue throughout the federal government, but it takes on special importance in DHS, where contractors often play an important role in critical incident response. DHS needs to actively engage other government entities in ensuring that these issues are addressed, but at a minimum, the Office of Health Affairs should provide specific minimum occupational health criteria for inclusion in various support contracts to ensure that contracted organizations address such critical issues as appropriate immunizations, requirements for meeting certain fitness-for-deployment standards, and mechanisms for obtaining necessary care during critical incident response before assigning personnel to contracted critical support positions.
|
From page 208... ...
The dependence of the mission on a robust capability to provide medical support to the workforce during operations sets DHS apart from most other federal agencies and imposes unique requirements for a workforce health protection infrastructure. OHA has achieved commendable progress toward the integration of emergency medical services (EMS)
|
From page 209... ...
. Working collaboratively with nine DHS component agencies through the Emergency Medical Services Training and Education Advisory Committee, OHA has developed a centralized EMS system plan, has established standards of care through baseline basic life support and advanced life support protocols, and has acquired software for departmentwide patient care reporting and tracking of EMS provider credentials.
|
From page 210... ...
, with input from the Medical and Readiness Committee, should establish a coordinated, department-wide operational medicine capability to ensure that timely and effective preventive and responsive medical services are available to all compo nent employees and others under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) control during routine, planned, and contingency operations.
|
From page 211... ...
The CMO should build on the accomplishments of the DHS Emergency Medical Services Training and Education Advisory Committee and the DHS EMS System Plan to develop a comprehensive operational medicine capability that allows flexibility for adaptation at the component (and subcomponent) level while establishing core requirements.
|
From page 212... ...
. Metrics that highlight the impact of operational medicine programs on mission capability and success are critical to engendering support from top leadership.
|
From page 213... ...
An example for which this has been found nearly universally true is credentialing of health care providers. The basic qualifications for an emergency physician, for example, are well established nationally, but they do require assessment by medical professionals experienced in the understanding of an individual physician's record, in a dispassionate manner, separate from the hiring process.
|
From page 214... ...
To ensure that health, safety, and medical programs at the component level are effective, efficient, and of high quality, the Office of Health Af fairs should develop and deliver certain health-related services common to all components. Centralized common services, to be recommended by the proposed Medical and Readiness Committee and approved by the Chief Medical Officer, should be adopted and implemented by the components unless a component-developed business case demonstrates otherwise.
|
From page 215... ...
If there are functions that one component, or even another government agency, already operates in an exemplary manner, DHS could choose to have that agency execute this function for the entire department (or for those components opting in) using a center of excellence model (see Figure 6-1 in Chapter 6)
|
From page 216... ...
2013. National Park Service operational and emergency medical services.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.