Occupational health is a specialist branch of medicine that focuses on the physical and mental wellbeing of employees in the workplace. The aim of our occupational health physicians (OHPs) and nurses (OHNs) is to help businesses prevent work-related illness and injury.
What is Occupational Health?
Studies show businesses lose 11 million workdays each year due to absenteeism in the workplace, costing the Irish economy €1.5 billion.
Here are just some of the ways Cognate Health can support your role and your organisation’s heath, wellbeing and safety:
- Support management of sickness absence
- Encourage safe working practices
- Conduct pre-employment health assessments (based on risk factors)
- Provide early intervention to support employees returning to work quickly and safely; and determine what employees need to perform their daily work activities in future
- Ergonomic assessments (ensuring workspace is fit for purpose)
- Work with employer to implement policies and support health education programmes
F
requent Occupational Health Service Requests
Why Occupational Health?
Aside from the financial implications, here are some other benefits of occupational health support:
Employee
- Confidentiality and comfort with third-party expert support
- Return-to-work process managed and supported, start to end
- Enables earliest possible recovery and return-to-work
- Minimise sick leave
- Protects your overall health and wellbeing
Employer
- Early intervention facilitates faster return-to-work
- Reduce cost of long-term absenteeism
- Minimise lost productivity
- Financial cost benefit overall
- Company Culture – promote a healthy workplace and wellbeing programme
It is important for managers to understand the difference and benefits of both an Occupational Health Physician and General Practioner. Here are just some key differentiators to better understand how occupational health supports your workplace.
| OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL (OHP) | GENERAL PRACTITONER (GP) |
|---|---|
| Independent Review | Patient / Employee Advocate |
| Objective assessment, based on medical evidence and findings | Subjective assessment, based on history outlined by employee |
| Understanding of Employee role and Environment | No understanding of workplace |
| Available to engage with HR when required | No ability to liaise with HR |
| Focuses on case closure for benefit of employer and employee | Focuses solely on treatment |
| OHP both employer and employee focused | GP entirely patient focused |
| OHP can advise on mediation | No ability to mediate with employer |
| OHP can advise on accommodations | GP cannot determine realistic accommodations |
| OHP can determine if absence work related and advise accordingly | GP cannot determine if absence is work related |
| OHP qualified doctor and two-year LFOM qualification | GP is a qualified doctor; no additional specialized training in workplace health and safety, etc. |
