Occupational medical, health surveillance, medical examination? Are they all the same, and what are their functions? We are going to give answers to these and other common questions on this subject
1.- What is occupational medical?
It is the medical speciality that studies the pathology derived from work, both direct exposure to specific risk factors, as well as that derived from the organisation of work and other risk factors that occur in the interaction between work and the person. Its aim is to protect the worker's health from a global approach, considering the worker in all areas.
The main functions of occupational medicine and nursing are: health promotion, prevention, health surveillance, emergency care, expertise, training, management and research.
2.- What professional qualifications should the health personnel of a prevention service have?
Medical staff must have the necessary qualifications to perform their professional duties: doctors must be specialists in occupational medicine or have a diploma in company medicine, and nurses must be specialists in occupational nursing or have a diploma in company nursing. Other doctors or specialist nurses may also be involved, depending on the qualifications associated with their speciality or discipline.
3.- What is occupational health surveillance?
We could define it as "the continuous observation of health-related phenomena through the systematic collection, consolidation and evaluation of data, together with regular and rapid dissemination to all those who need to know about them".
In practice, it consists of the early detection of damage to the health of workers, caused by exposure to occupational hazards of their activity, and the detection of damage to health that is not of occupational origin, but which may make the worker particularly sensitive to these occupational hazards, with the preventive aim of avoiding this damage by acting on the risk factors and making the work safe, and on the other hand establishing additional preventive measures for those workers whose state of health may worsen due to exposure to the hazards. In other words, everything that makes it possible to identify damage and to propose and evaluate interventions.
Health surveillance consists of two distinct and complementary approaches, individual and collective, and is integrated into the general process of occupational risk prevention in the company. It is not a set of unconnected activities, but is oriented towards prevention.
It is one of the main preventive tools of occupational medicine, which is essential to guarantee the health and safety of workers and to increase the promotion of health and also to encourage healthy habits among the working population.
4.- What does individual health surveillance consist of?
Its objective is to monitor the health of each worker. The focus is on the individual, seeking the early detection of health alterations caused by the risk and the existence of special sensitivities of the worker to these risks. It also carries out activities to promote the worker's health.
Its main tools are specific and protocolised medical examinations according to the possible damage attributable to the specific risks of the job, although other generally complementary alternatives are also applicable, such as health questionnaires.
5.- What does collective health surveillance consist of?
The aim is to monitor the health of a group or groups of workers. Health data are examined on the basis of epidemiological criteria. The aim is to assess beyond individual cases, to look for spatial and temporal trends and patterns.
It needs to be data-driven and the source of the data is not unique, with the results of individual health surveillance as well as other sources of information of collective interest.
These data provide information which, when grouped and interpreted, can make it possible, among other things, to detect the appearance of new health problems among workers, to assess the effectiveness of the preventive measures employed or to delimit the presence of a risk factor in a given space.
The ultimate aim is to propose preventive and health promotion measures.
6.- Is health surveillance the same as medical examinations?
No. Medical check-ups are a preventive tool of individual health surveillance of workers. Health surveillance is a much broader concept that encompasses many more preventive health activities.
7.- What are occupational medical examinations? (health examinations)
They are the main tool of individual health surveillance.
Occupational medical check-ups are those health examinations that are carried out on workers, basically aimed at detecting health alterations caused by the risk factors of the job. In other words, they must be specific for each risk. Their content is previously protocolised. They must also serve to ascertain the general state of health of the worker and detect special sensitivities to risks and propose preventive and health promotion actions.
Regardless of the specific and precise content of each protocol, medical examinations are structured in a series of sections: anamnesis, physical examination, complementary tests and analytical control, description of the jobs performed, times, risks and preventive measures.
The data obtained become indicators for subsequent Collective Health Surveillance studies.
8.- What is considered as aptitude for work?
It consists of a diagnostic and prognostic conclusion issued by the occupational physician of the prevention service, after assessing the worker's health data, the functions and demands of their job and the information provided by the risk assessment.
It assesses the occupational health fit that exists or will exist between the worker's health and the job he/she occupies or will occupy, and determines whether or not the worker can carry out the essential functions of his/her job, with the necessary reasonable adaptations to the job, and without the work to be carried out entailing a substantial risk of injury or illness for him/herself or for others.
9- What are the employer's obligations in terms of health surveillance?
The employer must ensure that the workers in his service are periodically monitored for their state of health according to the risks inherent in the work.