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Self-determination is a pathway by which individuals can safeguard as well as define their sense of safety. However, when an individual's sense of safety is placed at risk, particularly within the context of community, safety can become illusive. Due to safety's subjective nature, social workers and healthcare providers are invited to examine closely the roles they play to uphold a client's self-determination, as well as manage risk as instruments of the healthcare programmes we represent, within the context of community and amid our clients' challenging and oftentimes complex life circumstances. These ethical junctures offer practitioners an opportunity to examine how personal and collective ethical decisions are made, particularly through the lens of the ethics of care, which aims to place relationality at the forefront of the decision-making process. This clinical ethnographic narrative examines several ethical junctures I faced as the social worker to an elderly client diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Reprocessing single-use medical devices raises issues of patient safety, ethics, the environment and costs. The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the problems related to the reprocessing of single-use medical devices in the EU, with a focus on Portugal's position regarding this issue. ; The financial funding from QREN, POFC, Vale Inovação Project Nº 2012/24228 is gratefully acknowledged. ...

ABSTRACTIn managing business process flows, safety stock can be used to protect against stockouts due to demand variability. When more than one location is involved, the concept of aggregation enables the pooling of demands and associated inventories, resulting in improved service levels without increasing the total level of safety stock. This pooling of safety stock can be done physically by consolidating inventory in one location, or by using virtual centralization, where inventories are kept at decentralized locations, but information is centralized. In teaching the concept of pooling safety stock, a simple in‐class simulation can be helpful in demonstrating why the approach works. The approach presented here involves operations for a company where total product demand is constant, but there are two products and product mix can vary. The simulation can also be implemented using an electronic spreadsheet for classes that are taught on the Internet. A quiz was given to two sections, one that experienced the simulation and one that did not. A comparison of the results from the quiz provided evidence of the effectiveness of the simulation in helping students understand the impact of pooling safety stock. In addition, a brief anonymous survey that was administered in the section that had the simulation provided further support for the effectiveness of the simulation.

Defense contractors are increasingly seeking commercial customers and markets beyond traditional Department of Defense (DoD) and other government contracts. Commercial markets offer potential advantages such as large and stable customer bases, more predictable income streams and freedom from the burdensome government acquisition process. However, commercial markets pose unique challenges to traditional defense contractors in terms of product safety expectations, legal liability, and risk assessment and mitigation. This paper explores issues and obstacles that a defense contractor safety professional will face when introducing a product into a commercial environment. What commercial safety standards should be used, and what legal protection do they afford? What types of hazard analysis should be performed, and what additional hazard categories should be considered? How can the manufacturer be protected from customer misuse or modification of its products? And, the most vexing question faced by all commercial product designers: How safe is safe enough?

Introduction Individuals who are blind or have low vision (hereafter, visually impaired) encounter transportation barriers that impede their full participation in life activities, including transportation. This survey is the first national survey to focus specifically on the transportation issues of persons with visual disabilities. Methods A transportation survey was developed and disseminated electronically to people who are visually impaired. The first administration, in the fall and winter of 2013, went to persons in a volunteer registry. For the second administration, in early 2014, participants were recruited through electronic postings and e-mails with assistance from consumer groups and professional organizations. The combined useable sample of 492 included individuals with legal blindness ( n = 265), total blindness ( n = 188), and low vision ( n = 39). Results Participants were likely to have received orientation and mobility (O&M) training, and were confident in their O&M skills. They were also likely to have access to public transportation, to use public transportation to get to work, and to be generally satisfied with how they got to work. Transportation issues were less likely to impact participation in employment than several other life activities. Although most participants had received services from vocational rehabilitation agencies, few said those agencies assisted them in finding transportation to work. Discussion Although transportation issues affect the lives of persons with visual disabilities, the extent of their impact on employment remains unclear. Survey respondents appear to be using their O&M skills, to be fairly comfortable traveling, and to be generally satisfied with how they travel to work, thus confirming the importance of receiving quality O&M instruction. Implications for practitioners Service providers should consider evaluating the effect that transportation issues are having on the lifestyles of consumers. Individuals with visual impairments should be encouraged to take advantage of quality O&M instruction so that they can confidently access public transportation systems. More active rehabilitation practitioner participation in assisting consumers locate employment-related transportation is suggested, and evaluating the effect of that assistance would prove helpful.

This study examines the validity of injury statistics used to monitor workplace safety in the Canadian province of Alberta. These indicators were found to significantly under-report the rate of injury and to be vulnerable to gaming by both employers and the workers' compensation board. These threats to the validity of the measures should limit the inferences drawn from the measures. Injury-based statistics were also found to be inadequate proxies for the broader construct of workplace safety. The political feasibility of alternative measures is also discussed.

This review discusses food safety aspects of importance from a One Health perspective, focusing on Europe. Using examples of food pathogen/food commodity combinations, spread of antimicrobial resistance in the food web and the risk of transmission of zoonotic pathogens in a circular system, it demonstrates how different perspectives are interconnected. The chosen examples all show the complexity of the food system and the necessity of using a One Health approach. Food safety resources should be allocated where they contribute most One Health benefits. Data on occurrence and disease burden and knowledge of source attribution are crucial in assessing costs and benefits of control measures. Future achievements in food safety, public health and welfare will largely be based on how well politicians, researchers, industry, national agencies and other stakeholders manage to collaborate using the One Health approach. It can be concluded that closer cooperation between different disciplines is necessary to avoid silo thinking when addressing important food safety challenges. The importance of this is often mentioned, but more proof of concept is needed by the research community.

Offers a fact-based strategy development process for managing issues and controversies. The book shows practitioners how to ground their strategic advice on empirical research that reveals the socio-political dynamics of the issue. It is the first book to approach issues management from a blended application of advances in stakeholder theory and social network analysis. Readers learn how to track the socio-political environment in order to (a) avoid risks and crises, (b) obtain essential environmental scanning information for strategy development or adjustment, and (c) secure the organization's reputation and access to vital resources.

Abstract The aim of this research was to assess factors affecting safety performance on twenty apartment construction sites in Dublin using qualitative and quantitative risk assessment techniques. The quantitative techniques involved observing compliance with recommended safety procedures. The qualitative techniques involved an assessment of site safety management documentation and semi structured interviews with site management regarding site safety procedures. The field work was carried out between November 2003 and October 2004. The results showed that five sites out of twenty had high standards of safety and prevented all possible falls from heights. The five best performing sites were characterised by size of company in that that the largest construction companies were found to be the best performing. What was also found was that when a site performed well in terms of safety, it performed well across all safety categories. Evidence showing that the presence on site of a safety representative improved safety relevant to other sites was also found. The five best performing sites all had a safety representative, whilst the remaining 15 sites had a lesser number of safety representatives. However the overall number of safety representatives was too low to prove statistical significance, Interviews with site management regarding safety standards in the construction sector over the last five years found the following. The majority of site management stated there has been large improvement in safety. However, interviewees also stated that there has been no improvement in relation to buildings being any safer to build and hence no design improvements. Furthermore the clients influence on safety as required by legislation has not improved and in some cases has lessened. In terms of extrapolating the results against the literature the following can be stated. There has been a modest but nevertheless welcome improvement in site safety behaviour when comparing this research to comparable and previous Irish site safety research carried out in 2002.