Beating the Heat: Preventing Heat-Related Illness with Blueforce
Thousands of workers fall victim to heat related injuries annually. Heat Stroke and Heat Exhaustion can occur quickly and early signs are often ignored as workers are focused on accomplishing their assigned tasks. These injuries can occur when work is being done outside and inside and are a major concern of EHS groups across a wide swath of industries. The fact is that heat related illness is very preventable. When environmental conditions represent a risk to workers, a few easy preventative measures can be taken to dramatically mitigate risk:
- Wear appropriate clothing and adjust carried loads
- Drink water regularly even if not feeling thirsty
- Learn warning signs of heat related illness and keep an eye on co-workers
- Adjust work tempo to a slower pace when environments presents risk
- Take frequent breaks and get out of sun periodically if working outside
While the steps to mitigate are simple and don’t require any expensive equipment, the key to a successful safety program lies in identifying when a working environment represents a significant risk factor for heat related injury and having the proper oversight in place to ensure that workers are taking appropriate steps to follow the mitigation protocols designed to prevent thermal stress. Unfortunately neither of these are reliably accomplished using the tools commonly deployed today.
Blueforce Development Corporation, partnering with Nielsen-Kellerman, has created a solution that solves both of these problems, providing instant awareness to heat related risk levels in a work environment, and enabling effective oversight both at the worksite and at a regional or even global centralized level. This solution is effective for preventing heat related illness on the job and keeping workers healthier and more productive.
Over the coming two weeks, Blueforce will post a series of weblog posts that address a multitude of use cases.  We are also proud to offer our new eBook: “Beating The Heat: Preventing Heat-Related Illness” which is available for download now.
