safety conversations

For at least one Colorado facility, workplace safety started with awareness. And building awareness was a team effort.

Wheatridge Medical Office, with about 140 employees, had three workplace injuries in the first half of 2013. The Wheatridge Safety team, representing departments across the facility, agreed that was unacceptable. But team members weren’t sure where to start, and the team lacked a management representative, making it hard to find time or resources to implement ideas.

That changed when Jeanne Kraft, RN, nurse manager for Internal Medicine, joined the safety team. The team adopted two ideas that had worked elsewhere. One was to host a safety fair, following a tried-and-true format: People visited several booths where they got information and answers to a quiz on basic safety practices. Everyone who completed the quiz then got a ticket for a barbecue lunch on the patio.