Michael Taylor. Photo: supplied
‘I would like people to be able to walk away from this and think: I understand how to approach this problem now.’ – Dr Michael Taylor, Technical Executive, WSP Australia
When Dr Michael Taylor talks about hazards in healthcare, it’s with the grounded clarity of someone who knows that patient care always comes first, but that doesn’t mean staff safety should fall last.
At the upcoming ANMF OHS Conference in November, Dr Taylor will unpack what it means to manage hazards in what he calls a ‘reactive workplace’, and why this is both a unique challenge and an opportunity for nurses, midwives and carers to lead the charge in facilitating safer, healthier workplaces.
‘In a healthcare environment, if I said, “what are you going to do today; there’s only a general outline.” You might say, “I’ll be dealing with some patients,” but exactly what that’s going to look like and what it’s going to mean if an emergency arises, that completely changes the shape of the day,’ Dr Taylor says.
Unlike many other working environments, healthcare shifts can change at a moment’s notice, making it difficult to predict and measure exposure to hazards accurately.
‘It’s very, very difficult to say exactly what things you are going to touch or expose yourself to during the course of the day because what you come across in a shift just changes too much.’
Unseen hazards in everyday care
So, what are the hazards that healthcare workers face, often without even noticing?
‘Hazard recognition often is overlooked for obvious reasons,’ Dr Taylor says. ‘Patient care comes ahead of the other bits and pieces and [staff] tend to forget their own safety.’
Noise is a prime example.
‘Although at times it might be quite loud, you would never say, “Oh, it’s too noisy in here, we need to do something about changing the way space is designed,” or “I’m going to put in earplugs”, because that’s probably going to reduce your ability to communicate and therefore reduce your capacity to deliver the best care – despite the harm it is causing to you.’
Dr Taylor also points to gaseous exposures, aerosols, fumes and chemicals as hazards that often go unrecognised because they are not as tangible as the surfaces we touch.
‘What we touch, we tend to feel like we have a degree of control over. So, hand washing and skin sanitisation, people tend to recognise. But if you go in and out of rooms where, say, anaesthetic gas is in use, you have less control over that. We don’t choose to breathe one bit of air or another. It just is what it is.’
Building a hazard-recognition mindset
For nurses and midwives, integrating hazard recognition into daily practice can feel challenging when the immediate priority is always patient care. But it is possible to develop a mindset that identifies risks early and reduces long-term harm.
‘A big part of my presentation will be about hazard recognition itself,’ Dr Taylor explains. ‘When we see a very high-level hazard, it’s often obvious, and we can say: I need to avoid that. But as you go down the spectrum to things that might not seem very dangerous but that we’re exposed to a lot, it becomes a problem.’
Dr Taylor encourages nurses and midwives to consider both frequency and severity when assessing risks.
‘The crossover between how dangerous something is and how often it happens raises the question: when should I intervene? There’s an enormous number of things you could measure, but I would hope that from a discussion like this, people with particular technical strengths – whether that’s someone working closer to oncology or midwifery – can bring some of those measures together and look for overlaps.’
By working collectively, frontline staff can identify which hazards deserve immediate focus, allowing them to measure exposures and build a holistic and reusable framework for addressing risks in a healthcare environment.
‘I think what tends to happen is when you start looking, you begin to build in your own mind the framework of “now I understand how to approach this problem, I can apply it again and again”.’
Linking safety and wellbeing
Occupational hygiene doesn’t only protect physical health; it also reduces psychological stress by turning perceived unknowns into manageable risks.
‘What is beginning to flow into occupational hygiene is psychosocial hazards. Understanding how being in a stressful environment – whether that’s because there’s high hazards present or because it’s a reactive environment – plays into someone’s wellbeing.’
Perceived risk can increase stress, even if the actual risk is low.
‘The perception that I’m in a dangerous place is very stressful. The process of managing that may well be measuring and determining that it is actually low risk, but the outcome will be not only a better understanding of the problem, but a lower overall psychological burden.’
Effective risk communication and clear measurement of hazards can build trust, collaboration and a safer culture in healthcare settings.
‘We can’t live in a zero-risk environment, but recognising what causes the most impact on us tends to make a much more productive conversation,’ says Dr Taylor.
Why union members belong at the OHS Conference
Dr Taylor is clear about why nurses and midwives should attend OHS events like this.
‘The people who will understand the hazards in their workplace, the risks around them best, will be those doing the job. It won’t necessarily be external people or a safety person on their own. It will be the collaborative effort of those doing the work and those that can take the information and do something with it.
‘It is critically important that they are the ones that communicate what they see and do every day in order to improve their working conditions.’
