Two leading figures in the EHS world will challenge this year’s Medgate User Group Conference attendees to leave behind their preconceived notions of environmental health and safety management in order to meet the challenges of the changing world of work.
Dr Casey Chosewood, Director of the Office for Total Worker Health at NIOSH, will open the conference and Steve Newell, author of the OSHA recordkeeping book AKA the “Bluebook”, will close the event.
Dr Chosewood’s keynote presentation will look at the evolving nature of working life and how EHS professionals will have to adapt to cope with new employment patterns. Modern working conditions are changing and new risks are emerging more rapidly than ever. For many workers, traditional hazards continue to cause injury and illness and contribute to the development of chronic diseases at an alarming rate. Dr Chosewood will propose novel, comprehensive strategies to better protect and promote the safety, health and wellbeing of workers.
Steve Newell will give the closing presentation on how the traditional focus on reducing incident rates may be distracting safety professionals from preventing incidents that matter most, fatalities and serious injuries. Steve’s review of the data questions the generally accepted linkage between minor incidents and serious injuries and fatalities, as reflected in the Safety Triangle.
Both keynotes will give Medgate users new perspectives on approaches that are often taken for granted in health and safety and come away with new ideas to implement in their EHS systems.
Medgate president Mark Wallace said: “We’re fortunate to have two keynote presentations from such forward-thinking figures. Medgate has a detailed roadmap which describes how we intend to meet the future needs of our customers. These presentations will challenge our customers to prepare with us for the years ahead.”