Health care and first response
Funding Agency: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Applied Research and Development (ARD) Grant
Status: Ongoing
Project description: In Canada, there are approximately 28,000 paramedics who serve over 37 million people. Unfortunately, paramedics are a high-risk occupational group for fatigue, which may not only endanger the health of safety of responders, but also the health and safety of the public they serve. The composition of shift schedules, including their pattern and length, and paramedic workload are contributors to paramedic fatigue. Through a one-year prospective cohort study, CISWP, in collaboration with two major paramedic services in Ontario, is investigating the impact of newly implemented work shift schedules on their personnel’s fatigue and associated risks on health, wellbeing, and performance. During the one-year period, CISWP researchers will gather and analyze daily event and task data, self-reported fatigue, and wrist-worn activity-based sleep metrics of paramedic participants. Research findings will support paramedic services across Canada in understanding the longer-term impact of a rotating shift schedule and will support a service’s decision-making in designing the most optimal work schedule that accommodates their operations in the safest manner possible.
Funding agency: Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC)
Status: Completed
Project description:
Work disability prevention and management is often handled reactively and varies across paramedic organizations. Since these practices are not integrated within management systems or standardized across paramedic service organizations, they can be very resource-intensive and less effective than they could be. Therefore, developing an evidence-informed, unified, and standardized approach will fill a critical gap. Through this research project, CISWP developed, promoted, and disseminated a nationally applicable Canadian Paramedic Work Disability Prevention Standard and related tools to help prevent and manage work disability, specifically those associated with Operational Stress Injuries.
Funding agency: Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC)
Status: Completed
Project description: First responders (police, paramedic, firefighter) are at high risk of suffering decrements in performance related to fatigue. Such performance decrements endanger not only the personal health and safety of these responders but also the health and safety of their fellow responders and the public they serve. CISWP, CSA, and industry partners developed Canada’s first evidence-informed National Standard on First Responder Workplace Fatigue Risk Management to help measure, assess, manage, and reduce the effects of fatigue, through a multidisciplinary lens.
Funding agency: Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC)
Status: Completed
Project description: Paramedics are 2.9 times more likely to suffer from injuries requiring time away from work and 13 times more likely to suffer from low back pain compared to other industries. Although the essential tasks of patient handling, care, and transport cannot be eliminated, the design of the ambulance and its associated equipment, which play a significant role in how paramedics interact with their patients, is modifiable. However, existing ambulance and equipment design standards, which are mandated and used as a basis for communicating design requirements, provide limited guidance on human factors and ergonomic (HFE) principles. This project aimed to develop a Canadian Standard that specifies minimum HFE design and usage requirements for emergency response vehicles and equipment with consideration of paramedic and patient safety and infection control.
Funding agency: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Status: Completed
Project description: Frontline healthcare workers, such as paramedics, have risen to the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 heath crisis, playing a vital role in maintaining public health and safety. Paramedics, however, are a high-risk worker group for developing mental health injuries due to a unique set of stressors. This project aimed to rapidly mobilize solutions and expertise to develop rapid guidelines for the paramedic community to prevent and manage mental health injuries during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The guideline will also be a critical tool for the paramedic community to prepare for future public health crises.
Funding agency: Internal
Status: Completed
Project description: Long-term healthcare is one of the many sectors that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted. The pandemic has exacerbated and highlighted many gaps within long-term care homes, including staffing shortages, overtime, workload, access to paid sick days, quality of care, and infection prevention and control practices and policies. Many long-term care facilities recognize the challenges and would like to implement Total Worker Health (TWH) approaches to ensure that not only do their staff have a safe work environment but also that their staff’s health and well-being are supported.
Using validated TWH assessment tools, the objective of this project was to conduct a needs assessment in long-term care facilities to 1) assess the current state of workplace policies, programs, and practices that focus on working conditions and organizational facilitators for worker safety, health, and well-being; 2) assess the current state of worker health and well-being; and 3) identify steps to improve workforce safety, health, and well-being.
Funding agency: Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
Status: Completed
Project description: The focus of this project was to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on the Canadian workforce and support the sustainability of Canadian businesses through cultivating a community of practice between key stakeholders. Through a research grant provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), CISWP received infrastructure funding to establish an interactive communication system to collaborate and engage with a nationwide audience of researchers, policymakers, employers, employees, unions, professional associations, and other end-users to develop, evaluate, and disseminate research. The CFI infrastructure will continue to enable CISWP to foster a community of practice to conduct and transfer knowledge from several research projects spearheaded by CISWP.