Code Pink Hijinks

Healthcare institutions throughout the United States use a standardized color code system to communicate emergencies within the organization. Here are some examples of the color code system, which can differ from hospital to hospital depending on what state you are in.

Code Blue � medical emergency

Code Red � fire

Code Orange � hazardous material spill or incident

Code Pink � infant or child abduction

Code Yellow � bomb threat

Code Gray � combative person

Code Triage � internal or external disaster

There was a Code Pink incident this January in Arizona where a new father smuggled his baby out of the hospital by placing the baby in a shopping bag and wrapping the baby in blankets. He first tried to exit through a locked fire door, and then walked out of the main entrance of the hospital, making it back to his home with the baby. The baby was retrieved by the police and placed under protective custody in the department of child safety. Interestingly, some of the most thorough news coverage was from DailyMail UK.

Based on this incident, many hospitals in the Phoenix metro area staged their annual Code Pink drill this year with the scenario of a family member trying to remove a baby from the hospital using a shopping or tote bag, to test their staff response in the women�s and children�s units, as well as security response.

Hospitals frequently use infant abduction protection systems like Hugs� or Cuddlesor MyChild�. These infant tag systems are designed to integrate with a hospital�s existing security technology and raise an alarm if the tag is altered or if the infant moves outside of the approved pre-set perimeter.

HICSCenter.orghas developed an infant/child abduction scenario, including a planning guide, response guide, and incident command chart. The Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) differs slightly from �normal� ICS in that it is written for hospitals and includes components of continuing medical care in an emergency situation.

Some of my favorite movies and TV shows have had baby stealing as a component of the story: Willow (1988), Labyrinth (1986), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer � Season 3, Episode 6: Band Candy (1998). Not sure what that says about my movie tastes. 

In Season 3, Episode 6 (Band Candy) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1998), the adults of Sunnydale start behaving like teenagers after ingesting magically modified chocolate candy bars sold by the students to raise money for the marching band to get new uniforms. Yes, I was in marching band. I played the clarinet. Yes, I also sold candy and wrapping paper and a host of other things to support the band. The adults have been more or less incapacitated by demons and vampires so that the leading baddie (the Mayor of Sunnydale) can complete a tribute to a local demon named Laconis. Laconis lives in the sewers and eats babies. Buffy and her team go to the hospital to see if any babies are missing, and the staff and parents are acting like unconcerned, self-absorbed teenagers, so much so that they didn�t notice four babies being taken. The babies are rescued by Buffy after the demon is defeated and returned to the hospital.

The tribute of babies for the demon Laconis in "Band Candy" from Buffy S3 E6.

Lesson learned? Chocolate can be used for evil.

Labyrinth(1986) involves the Goblin King, Jareth, stealing the little brother of the main character, Sarah. Sarah is irritated that she�s been left home to babysit and that her little brother won�t stop crying. She wishes him away to a fantasy world ruled by Jareth and a cadre of muppet characters.  Jareth sings a song about it that�s pretty awesome. Sarah has 13 hours to solve the labyrinth before Jareth turns her brother into a goblin. Sarah ends up saving her brother at the last minute and returns to the real world.

The goblins from Labyrinth - image courtesy of muppet.wikia.com.

Lesson learned? Puppets are awesome. 

In Willow (1988), the main character Willow has become responsible for a Daikini baby found by his children by the riverside. A member of the diminutive Nelwyn people, Willow gives the baby to a disgraced Daikini warrior, Madmartigan, after Madmartigan convinces Willow that taking care of the baby would give him a reason to live and turn his life around. Not long after they part ways, Willow is dismayed to discover that Madmartigan�s child care skills were, in a word, awful. The baby, named Elora Danan, is whisked away from Madmartigan by a couple of brownies named Rool and Franjean. The brownies are working to save Elora Danan from being captured by an evil queen who wants to kill Elora to attain unmeasurable power. Willow and Madmartigan eventually team up with the brownies and lose/regain Elora Danan several times during the movie.

Lesson learned? Don�t leave an infant with unqualified caregivers. And Madmartigan is the greatest swordsman that ever lived.

To commemorate our Code Pink drill this year, I drew the following cartoon/manga of a possible Code Pink incident based on the events of Willow. 

Code Pink planning with Willow, Madmartigan, Rool, and Franjean. 

We're hard at work on our new Sock Puppet Safety videos and will share when they are completed. Thanks for your continued reading!

A close-up of the "We stole the baby!" moment since it is my favorite part of the manga:

Rool and Franjean steal Elora Danan from Madmartigan. 

Article on Weird Workplace Safety Videos

On July 2, 2015, The Atlantic published an interesting article entitled "In Praise of the Humble Workplace Safety Video" by Sophie Gilbert.

The full article can be accessed here. 

Ms. Gilbert stated in the article: "There are no statistics relating to whether safety videos actually decrease occurrences of injuries and fatalities in the workplace, but they definitely offer a healthy defense against one serious threat: lawsuits."

A 2006 study in the American Journal of Public Health entitled "Relative Effectiveness of Worker Safety and Health Training Methods" explained that video-based training is one of the least effective intervention methods to improve workers' knowledge of safety and health. Lectures and videos are passive methods that are commonly used in industry to present safety and health information, but were shown in this study to be the least engaging and least effective methods. More engaging methods, such as hands-on demonstrations and participatory discussions, were recommended.

NIOSH also discussed the effectiveness of safety training for workers in a blog post from January 29, 2010. The blog post explained: "In many cases, it was difficult or impossible to draw firm conclusions about the areas we examined due to the lack of quality research. There is a critical need for high quality, controlled studies of workplace health and safety training. That said, given that workplace education and training programs have a positive impact on health and safety behaviors, as we noted earlier in our discussion, and that training and education is a fundamental component of workplace safety and health protections, we recommend that workplaces continue to conduct education and training programs."

In 1999, NIOSH also released a document providing "A Model for Research on Training Effectiveness" that discusses what makes training effective, and explains the Training Intervention Effectiveness Research (TIER) model. The NIOSH document explains that:     

"[...] the most important goal of occupational safety and health training is the long-term reduction of injury and illness among workers. However, a longitudinal study does not meet the immediate evaluation needs of training interventions, and resources for such studies are not readily available. Therefore, occupational safety and health training research usually focuses on representative outcomes (e.g., workers� statements of behavioral intent) that are believed to accurately project unrealized impacts. Representative outcomes include direct results (such as improved attitudes toward risk reduction and hazard control) and intermediate variables (such as changes in work practices among workers who have received training)."

More on safety training and videos later. Happy 4th of July weekend!

We won! Thanks for voting in the #IHFundance Film Festival Competition!

Great news, loyal readers - 

Our Sock Puppet Safety video won THIRD PLACE in the IH Fundance Film Festival, held as part of the 2015 AIHce Conference. We're excited to use our winnings to make - you guessed it - more free safety training videos on YouTube featuring our adorable sock puppets!

We were excited to see the announcement from AIHA in the special edition of AIHA's E-ssential Connection:

Sock Puppet Safety won 3rd Place in the #IHFundance competition!

If you haven't already seen our awesome video, view it here: Cautionary Tales in Lab Safety

The first place award went to "Take Industrial Hygiene Home With You" by the industrial hygiene students at University of Michigan, and the second place award went to "Guardians of the Workers" by Jesse Zalk, the son of David Zalk, PhD, CIH. Congratulations to our fellow winners!

We'd also like to give our own Honorable Puppet Mention to the entry entitled "What Should I Be When I Grow Up?" by Kate Cole. 

Thanks again for voting and look for more videos in coming months featuring our team at Sock Puppet Safety (including a revelry-filled gag reel):

Sock Puppet Safety - Mad Labs Team: Piper Pangolin, Manny Macaw, Lemmy Lemur.

Upcoming topics include hazardous spill response, chemical inventories, eyewash testing, and other laboratory safety topics. We're working on other occupational safety scripts for general workplace safety as well - and are excited to collaborate with other Phoenix-area environmental health and safety specialists for later videos.

#IHFundance - Cautionary Tales in Lab Safety!

Greetings, loyal readers!

Please take 2 minutes out of your very busy day and check out "Cautionary Tales in Lab Safety," our first ever Sock Puppet Safety video on YouTube. This is a video submission for the IH Fundance Film Festival Contest at AIHce 2015 in Salt Lake City, UT.

The Industrious Hygienist will not be able to attend AIHce this year, but if you are going to the conference, please vote for my video! I promise to make more fun videos if we win. 

However, the Industrious Hygienist will be attending Safety 2015 in Dallas, TX in June. I hope to meet up with fellow safety and industrial hygiene nerds - I might even bring a puppet with me. If you're at Safety 2015, please also contribute to my roundtable at Session #625, "Safety Implications of Chemical Disinfectants in Healthcare." 

The roundtable is intended to discuss the following: "Healthcare associated infections represent a significant challenge to patient safety. To control this emerging threat, new chemicals and novel applications of existing chemicals are being marketed heavily to the healthcare industry. This roundtable will discuss challenges and attempt to build consensus on development of a proactive Health & Safety assessment model which balances staff and patient safety."

Wish us luck in the IH Fundance Film Festival! Vote for my puppets!

Leave us comments on YouTube if there are specific safety and industrial hygiene topics you'd like to see acted by our cadre of puppets. 

Activating the Easter Incident Command System

The Industrious Hygienist has been ridiculously busy over the last few weeks making new puppets and manga (and still working three jobs). To help tide you over until the more educational and interesting posts, here's a 2015 holiday greeting for Easter - or the spring/fertility festival of your choice.

Attempting to make Easter enjoyable as an adult - brought to you by Sock Puppet Safety.

Upcoming blog posts include: writing a tabletop disaster drill scenario with Master Scenario Events List (MSEL), Code Pink shenanigans, why every manager should be trained in incident command, and completing an After Action Report (AAR).

Bored in Asbestos Refresher Class?

I spend a lot of time in continuing education classes, including annual asbestos refresher classes. Some of the classes are a regulatory requirement and others are topics I'm interested in. Certifications such as the Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH), Certified Safety Professional (CSP), and Certified Indoor Environmentalist (CIE) require a certain amount of contact hours for continuing education.

In a given year, I devour an average of 100 hours in conferences, refresher classes, and continuing education as shown below:

• Asbestos Building Inspector: 4 hours per year
• Asbestos Contractor Supervisor: 8 hours per year
• Asbestos Management Planner: 4 hours per year
• Asbestos Project Designer: 8 hours per year
• Lead Risk Assessor: 8 hours every three years
• Lead Project Designer: 8 hours every three years
• Industrial Hygiene Ethics: 1-2 hours every other year
• American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Safety Professional Development Conference: 3 days every other year
• American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Exposition (AIHce): 3 days every other year
• Local Arizona ASSE Safety Professional Development Conference: 8 hours every year
• OSHA 503 Update for General Industry Trainers: 3 days every three years
• Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) Chapter Meetings or Webinars: 8 hours per year
• HAZWOPER Refresher: 8 hours per year
• Hazardous Materials and Waste Transportation Refresher: 10 hours every three years
• Hazardous/Toxic Waste Management Refresher: 8 hours every three years
• Other interesting continuing education courses: 8-16 hours per year

I recently spent part of a morning texting a friend/client (at their request) to help them stay awake in asbestos refresher class. This got me thinking about all the times I attempted to keep focused during class in the 8+ years of various asbestos refreshers, to little avail.

Attendees to asbestos refresher class can be very disruptive, using the class as a vehicle to network (loudly) with consultants, contractors, and building owners or representatives. Sometimes they'll spend the entire day texting and emailing, jumping out of their seats to take a call in the lobby, speaking just loud enough so the rest of the class can see how busy and important they are. Others open up their laptops and just work on projects during the refresher class. If there are snacks or coffee provided, you're guaranteed to have some obnoxiously loud slurpers or chewers. 

Here's some of the ways I quietly and unobtrusively entertain myself during asbestos refresher class:

• Play "Free Rice" on my cell phone - less obvious than some of the other cell phone games, just as addictive, and your learning helps contribute to donations of rice via the World Food Programme
• Doodle all over my refresher class notes
• Make up my own acronyms (EPA, AHERA, MAP, NIOSH, OSHA, etc.)
• If desperately bored, I'll go through other continuing education courses on my iPhone or iPad, like the CDC Biosafety QuickLearn lessons, California Department of Public Health Continuing Education Courses on Lead/Mercury/Coccidioidomycosis, and University of Minnesota School of Public Health's free online courses in public health

And, of course, I'll pay attention to new letters of interpretation or interesting arguments, answer questions when prompted, and complete the end of course test or assessment in record time.

I drafted this latest Industrious Hygienist manga during the text session with my friend/client, hope you enjoy it.

The Industrious Hygienist is never bored in asbestos refresher class!

Holiday Manga - 2014 - Part Four

Please enjoy the next installment of The Industrious Hygienist's HOLIDAY MANGA.

Here is the finale, Part Four (of Four) for the 2014 Holiday Edition:

The Industrious Hygienist's 2014 Holiday Edition Manga - Part Four

The Exceptional Spouse and I are looking forward to spending the holidays with family and friends, especially the events where Shadow (Alaskan Malamute) gets to come along.

Thanks for continuing to read my blog - expect more safety and industrial hygiene related posts in 2015 and beyond.