Weblog roundup: Gulf recovery workers, managed care, pay for performance, and FMLA

October 14th, 2005 by Julie Ferguson

Addition to the blogroll. We welcome the Brooklyn Dodger to our growing list of resources in the sidebar. Brooklyn Dodger comments on research in occupational and public health and current events in politics related to public health, occupational health, and the environment. The blog reports on studies and articles from Journals that may not be readily available. Here’s a sampling of recent posts:
Increased Colorectal Cancer Observed Among Asbestos Exposed Workers
Association of Risk Factors for Breast Cancer with Types of Work
Workplace violence in Health Care Settings
Gulf recovery workers. Jordan Barab has been covering the health risks posed to Gulf recovery workers in the aftermath of the recent hurricanes and some legislative efforts to ensure worker safeguards. And rawblogXpoat points us to this article on the exploitation of immigrant workers who are subject to harsh living and working conditions, and facing serious risks with little in the way of safety precautions or protective equipment.
Managed care. Joe Paduda discusses “the wild world of workers comp managed care,” offering informed commentary on the competitive arena, with a rundown of the key industry players in terms of networks and service providers.
Pay for Performance. DB’s Medical Rants has an excellent post on medical pay for performance that reports on some initial studies. Initial data analysis would seem to indicate that “Paying clinicians to reach a common, fixed performance target may produce little gain in quality for the money spent and will largely reward those with higher performance at baseline.”
More on genetic testing. We’ve been discussing this issue over the last few days, and we note that Workplace Fairness has more discussion on genetic testing in its October 11th post.
FMLA mistakes. Strategic HR Lawyer points to common mistakes that employers make in connection with the Family & Medical Leave Act.