Safe Saskatchewan Blog

It's time to talk about Mission: Zero Live injury-free.

2010-06-30T11:06:38Z

As I head out on holidays I am reminded of how important it is to treat injury prevention in a holistic way.

If you have been watching the "What's New" section of safesask.com you will already know that in April, WorkSafe Saskatchewan's Mission: Zero campaign officially grew beyond working to live, to living injury-free. With the help of this partner, Safe Saskatchewan is starting to make inroads in Saskatchewan - but it's only the beginning.

There are a lot of ideas for how Mission: Zero will extend itself into Saskatchewan homes. But while we work out these details, you can still make a difference now.

To change the attitudes and behaviours of all Saskatchewan residents, it all comes down to one person changing. You. We have an obligation as parents and grandparents to provide a good example when it comes to injury prevention. If we don't take these necessary steps, why should our children?

This summer I challenge you to adopt Mission: Zero as your own mission, your own quest, and put an end to unintentional injuries affecting you and your family.

I'll be doing the same in my upcoming summer holiday.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences upon my return.

Until then, farewell and keep safe.

Health & Safety Leadership Charter a Success!

2010-06-25T12:06:25Z

In the early stages of planning with our WorkSafe partners, we aimed to garner the commitment of 100 government, business and community leaders to sign the Health & Safety Leadership Charter and position the health and safety of their employees and Saskatchewan communities as a priority and even more, a core value, we would be successful. The June 10, 2010 event was attended by over 200 individuals representing 128 organizations who were Charter signatories. This is a phenomenal success!

We can't rest on the success of this event but maintain the momentum by working together to develop a Health & Safety Leadership Learning Community whereby our leaders can share best practices, successes and challenges on the path to transforming to a provincial culture where injury prevention is a core value.

Learn more about this historical event at http://www.safesask.com/html/partnerships/ceo_charter/index.cfm Next year's Leaders' Forum and Charter Signing event will be held on Thursday, June 9, 2011 in Saskatoon and we will mark the second Thursday in June of every year as another stepping stone on the journey towards ending our provincial unintentional injury epidemic!

Business Case Continues to Garner Attention for Saskatchewan

2010-06-18T01:06:59Z

Several months ago I had the opportunity to present the Business Case for Injury Prevention to the staff at the Electrical & Utilities Safety Association (EUSA). On May 31, 2010, I was invited to present the Business Case at EUSA's Annual General Meeting in Huntsville, Ontario. EUSA has created a legacy of 95 years of safety leadership, and they've come a long way on their journey towards reducing the injury rate and impacts for their stakeholders in the electrical and utilities sector.

I had a great time presenting to this crowd - and Safe Saskatchewan's Business Case was well received! Staff and EUSA representatives saw the potential for human and financial cost savings right away through the extension of injury prevention efforts beyond their workplace and into the off-the-job lives of their employees, their families and their communities. So too has an exponential return on investment been proven.

IndustryWeek Magazine Article

2010-06-01T02:06:15Z

Check out this article posted in IndustryWeek Magazine online on May 21, 2010.

"'Healthiest Companies in America' Use Preventative Programs to Lower Costs"
According to a study by The American Journal of Health Promotion, employers who invested in worksite heath promotion saw a 28 per cent reduction in sick leave absenteeism, 26 per cent reduction in use of health care benefits and a 30 per cent reduction in workers' comp claims and disability management.

This is just another example of how investing in injury prevention and health promotion programs can save companies millions on their bottom line. It actually reminds me of the Mosaic Potash Business Case, where one Mosaic Potash Business Unit captured an internal rate of return of over 500 per cent in just two quarters.

To read the full article, click here.

To check out the Mosaic Potash Business Case for Injury Prevention, click here.

Collaborations for Injury Prevention in the Education Curriculum

2010-05-21T09:05:55Z

Safety is not a core value of our Saskatchewan culture. Injury prevention is not top of mind when our general public is at work, home or play. This needs to change.

To transform a culture, research has confirmed that behavioural modifications have to start at a young age - with children. Slowly, as this generation grows up - the new values grow up with them. Saskatchewan needs to change its perception of unintentional injuries. We need to call these injuries what they are - predictable, preventable and unnecessary.

Earlier this week, Safe Saskatchewan took a dramatic step towards influencing the young people of our province. We co-hosted a Safety Education Strategic Planning Workshop with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education and WorkSafe Saskatchewan. We invited over 100 leaders from leading organizations, industry, business, government and special interest groups within the province and had 50 representatives in attendance. Our focus was on unintentional injury prevention supports and resources for the K-12 school system. Our purpose was to first examine the elementary school level and see how we could begin to incorporate broad injury prevention principles like risk assessment in support of the Saskatchewan curriculum.

From my experience with creation of the provincial Seniors' Falls Injury Prevention Strategy, I understand the road we are embarking on - the development and eventual execution of a provincial safety education strategy - will be a long, and tiresome iterative process. But I know it will be worth it - and now Saskatchewan stakeholders know it will be worth it too. The best and most successful strategies always demonstrate discipline when applying resources and time in the front end development. And so we work collaboratively together.

One of the key messages Safe Saskatchewan heard at this Workshop was that some key stakeholders are still missing from this collaborative undertaking. If you want to learn more about this development or you know of a key stakeholder who needs to be a part of this process, please contact me directly or email info@safesask.com.

This is the beginning of dramatic change in our province - and we need help in moving forward together.

How can you help our Mission:Zero quest to live injury-free?

2010 The Meri Misfits Promote Falls Prevention

2010-05-07T01:05:39Z

I once read that peer education is an effective way to get a message across and accepted by an audience. As a matter of fact, peer education is an important element in raising awareness around seniors' fall injury prevention. The Meri Misfits are a group of individuals from the Saskatoon Seniors Players who have been performing in the City for some time now.

You can see the Misfits through a series of YouTube video clips. Take a look and see what they were up to at Pineview Manor in Saskatoon on September 24, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzYr4qTdOzY.

...what a great way to raise awareness of the importance of preventing falls in our seniors' community and I'm sure, a best practice example of engaging seniors in our vision of Saskatchewan seniors living fall-free lives!

Mission: Zero Live injury-free aims to unite all Saskatchewan Injury Prevention partners

2010-04-30T03:04:45Z

Saskatchewan residents have been given a new call to action. Last Friday, WorkSafe Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour and Safe Saskatchewan hosted a media conference announcing the launch of a more holistic injury prevention movement Mission Zero: Live injury free.

This new mission will build on WorkSafe Saskatchewan's recognized Mission: Zero campaign in the workplace. Mission: Zero Live injury-free aims to move the message from the workplace to the community and to people's homes.

Here was my acceptance speech for the new Mission: Zero concept on behalf of Safe Saskatchewan.

My name is Gord Moker, Chief Executive Officer of Safe Saskatchewan. On behalf of Safe Saskatchewan, our Founding, our Endorsing, and our other injury prevention partners it is with great pleasure that I accept this Mission: Zero quest on behalf of the people of the province and thank you to WorkSafe Saskatchewan.

Every hour of every day, 18 people are injured in our great province. By the end of today there will be 435 people who will have had and injury. Twenty-six of those people will end up in the hospital, 10 people will suffer permanent disabilities and 1 person will die from their injuries. In addition to the human costs of pain and suffering, preventable injuries cost our province $1 billion every year.

Preventable injuries have a negative impact on people, on families, on communities, on industry in Saskatchewan and our entire society. We need to turn around that picture so that the quality of life of our people, and the ability to realize the full potential of our province can come to reality.
Our mission is an injury-free Saskatchewan, where safe lifestyles influence how we live, work and play. Our mission now in partnership with WorkSafe Saskatchewan, and you the people of Saskatchewan is to eliminate unintentional injuries altogether. Let's work together on our mission of no injuries. And let's not stop until there are no injuries, no fatalities, no people being hurt, no families or communities being impacted by the negative effects of preventable injuries.

We've had enough - of the pain and suffering, and the costs of our economy - our partners have had enough. And now we need your help to put an end to this pain and suffering.

Thank you to Saskatoon Family Expo, one of our Endorsing Partners in Safe Saskatchewan, for providing us with the ability to be here this morning and through the weekend as we help to educate our children as to another way of life in terms of how we need to look at injuries. It's so important that we make our children injury-aware so that they can help us as parents and grandparents. And furthermore, we have an obligation as parents and grandparents, and that's to provide a good example when it comes to injury prevention, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You know if we don't wear our bike helmets when we're out biking with our families, if we don't buckle up when we're on the roads, why should our children?

We need to provide as good an example as we can.

We need to change attitudes in Saskatchewan.

We need to change behaviours in Saskatchewan.

We need to change.

Let's all adopt Mission: Zero as our own mission, our own quest to put an end to our provincial unintentional injury epidemic and let's live injury-free.

2010 Family Expo

2010-04-21T11:04:19Z

From kids to seniors... it's a family day! at the Saskatoon Family Expo, and Safe Saskatchewan will be right there with our own large-scale Rebecca Trail. With the help of our partners; SGI, WorkSafe Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour, Sherritt Coal and St. John's Ambulance, six Rebecca Safety Stations will spread across one of the aisles at the Saskatoon Family Expo this weekend. Safe Saskatchewan will also be using a new brand moniker that we hope will be the province's call to action against unintentional injuries.

Be sure to come by and say hi if you're in Saskatoon this Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Or better yet - test your safety smarts by participating in the Rebecca Trail and enter your name to win one of three iPod Nanos!

See you there.

Plan to Transform the Surgical Patient Experience

2010-04-08T11:04:52Z

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Health's, Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative (SSI), recently released "Sooner, Safer, Smarter" the Plan to address the challenge of surgical wait times in the province. The plan is intended to improve the experience of Saskatchewan surgical patients, reduce surgical wait times to no more than three months within four years, ensure that short wait times can be sustained into the future, and make changes that result in better and safer care for surgical patients. Details of the Plan can be obtained at http://www.health.gov.sk.ca/saskatchewan-surgical-initiative.

"Sooner, Safer, Smarter" is based on five objectives:

Shorter waits for surgical care;
A better experience for patients and families;
Safe, high quality care;
Support for good health;
Patient-centered providers.

Specific to objective #4, the Plan recognizes that any effort to improve surgical care must include the promotion of good health and prevention of injury so that more Saskatchewan people can delay the need for surgery - or avoid it all together. To that end, one of the four points highlighted states the SSI Plan will work to reduce falls and fall-related injuries: Guided by Safe Saskatchewan's Seniors' Fall Injury Prevention Strategy (SFIPS) and the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign, health system partners are identifying ways to reduce the risks of falls for seniors. By creating safer environments and helping older adults reduce their own risks, we can help seniors retain their mobility and avoid the debilitating injuries that often lead to surgery.

This is truly exciting news and a validation that the time for seniors' fall prevention in our province is now at hand!!! Thanks to each of the members of the SFIPS Steering Committee for all the good work they've done over the years to position seniors fall prevention as a health priority!

CEO Health & Safety Leadership Charter Peaks Interest

2010-03-29T03:03:05Z

The CEO Charter, currently managed by the Conference Board of Canada, was created in 2005 by President & CEO of Bruce Power Inc., Mr. Duncan Hawthorne and is intended to support continuous improvement of healthy and safe workplaces by Canadian CEOs. It is founded on the principle that the effective management of health, safety and wellness is essential to the operation of a successful business. There are currently over 250 CEOs from across Canada, most of them from the east, who have signed the Charter. More on the Charter is available at www.ceosafety.org.

By signing, CEOs commit their support to a total of seven principles thus demonstrating their intent to "walk the talk". Of the seven, I take particular interest in the following two as they extend health, safety and wellness efforts beyond the workplace and into the off-the-job lives of employees, families and the communities within which they reside:

"To subscribe to the principle that nothing is more important than the health, safety and well-being of employees, contractors, visitors and the surrounding community."

"To extend health and safety efforts beyond the workplace, recognizing and supporting related initiatives within the community."

I believe one of the keys to ending our unintentional injury epidemic is to have our business leaders take a lead role by putting the health, safety and well-being of their employees first and by supporting the family unit of the employee with holistic injury prevention efforts. The CEO Health & Safety Leadership Charter supports and enables that process.

On Thursday, June 10, 2010 in Regina, Safe Saskatchewan will be partnering with WorkSafe Saskatchewan and the Conference Board of Canada to bring the CEO Charter to Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan-based CEOs will be sent invitations and information packages to be a part of this historic event in our province's injury prevention efforts, and will be asked to consider signing the Charter and engage in a provincial and national CEO health and safety leadership learning community. Last week, at the Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board's, Compensation Institute, 90 business leaders representing 60 organizations gathered to hear more about the Charter. If this positive response is any indication of the potential that the upcoming June, 2010 event holds, we will most surely be entering into a new decade of injury prevention in our province.

Watch for more information about the Charter and the June 2010 Signing Event in Regina on Safe Saskatchewan’s “What’s New” section.

More on the Rockglen Safe Steppin' Seniors

2010-03-10T10:03:25Z

It has been said that community engagement is one of the cornerstones to preventing injuries through awareness. This video, produced by the Safe Steppin' Seniors of Rockglen, shows the real influence a community group can have towards preventing falls in their community. To watch the video click here: http://www.safesask.com/html/family_injury/seniors_falls_prevention/index.cfm

Thanks Rockglen, for sharing your good work with us!!

"Wipe Out"

2010-03-03T02:03:29Z

I had recently had the opportunity to meet some folks from the Brain Injury Association of Canada (BIAC) (www.biac-aclc.ca) whose mission is improving the quality of life for all Canadians affected by acquired brain injury and promoting its prevention. As well, BIAC is dedicated to facilitate post-trauma research, education and advocacy in partnership with national, provincial/territorial and regional associations and other stakeholders. Their national conference is being held in the Fall of 2010, here in Regina: http://biac-aclc.ca/en/annual-conference.

BIAC pointed me to the film entitled “Wipe Out” which was produced by the Knowledge Network. Set aside some time to watch it: http://wipeout.knowledgenetwork.ca/wipeout.html. The two-minute trailer of the film appears through this link but you can also watch the full 50 minute film by clicking on “watch film” icon on the upper right of the page. The film follows the life of three young men who have acquired brain injuries because they did not use a helmet while partaking in extreme sports. I believe “Wipe Out” will add a new perspective on the human costs of preventable injuries and place importance on the use of proper safety tools (e.g helmet) to protect one from harm. Consider making an investment of 50 minutes of your time and providing some feedback on this eye-opening film!

Interesting how I was brought to this story and to this week’s blog considering my last blog post!! Synchronicity I guess!

Is a ski helmet cool or functional?

2010-02-23T04:02:06Z

Last weekend I accompanied our son Alex and the rest of the Regina 56th Scout & Cub Pack to Asessippi for a weekend of skiing. I haven't skied for almost 10 years so it was a good opportunity to try out my older set of muscles and bones. Alex and I had a blast in near perfect weather and snow conditions and it got me to thinking about some future trips to prairie ski hills or maybe even the mountains.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that ski helmets were provided at Asessippi so Alex and I both made the choice to wear them for the weekend.

Actually - - - I lied - - - I made the choice to wear my helmet and insisted that Alex wear his helmet - - much to his chagrin - - but later, he was cool with it!

While taking a break on the deck with a nice hot mocha in my hands, I took a quick poll of how many people were wearing ski helmets. Between adults, youth and children, I'd say that at least half of the skiing population last weekend wore ski helmets. I feel good about this observation as it is an indication that our safety culture is changing.

We came back to the ski chalet on Saturday for a bite of lunch and sat right across from a family with two young children. I began talking with the parents and inquired about their ski helmets. The Mom told me the story of a fall she had while skiing in the mountains and noted that if it wasn't for her helmet, she wouldn't be here today. She raised her helmet and showed me the dent on the front of the helmet where she landed face first onto a rock.

I commended her for wearing her helmet. (I also indicated that after a crash, it's a good idea to replace the helmet to ensure maximum safety. Even if you can't see any damage done to your helmet on the outside. It's also a good idea to check the expiry date of one's helmet as they don't last forever.)

Soooooo, is a helmet cool or functional? From my perspective, I think they're cool. From that Mom's perspective, a helmet is most definitely functional…what do you think?

Have you got any safety helmet stories to share?

How do you define an interdependent culture?

2010-02-18T12:02:56Z

In February, 2009, at our Second Annual Business Leaders' Forum, Paul Pascoe of the Safety Solutions Group presented three case studies of Australian businesses that had embarked on off-the-job injury prevention strategies with their employees. Two of these businesses had failed to sustain their efforts or deliver a successful strategy while one business succeeded. The key to that organization's success was the fact that the business was seen to have an interdependent culture that supported the off-the-job strategy over time and that resulted in the desired outcomes.

While attending the Saskatchewan Safety Council's, Industrial Safety Seminar last week I was speaking to an individual from one of our partner organizations and I talked about an interdependent culture. I indicated that if we are going to have success, as a province, in eliminating our unintentional injury epidemic, we must embrace an interdependent culture, one that sees us not only doing our part as individuals, but working together, in a collaborative manner. The individual I talked with asked me more about the attributes of an organization or a province with an interdependent culture and I had somewhat of a difficult time defining that for her.

Last week, a friend of mine who works in industrial safety sent me the DVD entitled "All For One - The Meerkat Way", a video produced by Lattitude Safety Limited of the United Kingdom (www.lattitudeproductions.co.uk). This short video helps define what an interdependent safety culture is all about and I highly recommend it. By watching the video and observing how Meerkats relate, I soon discovered the true definition of interdependency.

It seems we can learn a lot about the desired safety culture by following "The Meerkat Way".

Hats off to the Saskatchewan Safety Council once again!!

2010-02-10T08:02:53Z

I had the opportunity to take part in the Saskatchewan Safety Council's 37th Annual Industrial Safety Seminar in Saskatoon last week and from my perspective, the Seminar was another resounding success. Close to 700 delegates and just over 70 displayers had the opportunity to be part of one of the biggest safety seminars in Western Canada. Delegates were treated to some world class keynote speakers and many very good safety information presentations. Imagine... 37 years of growing success and safety advocacy!! What an accomplishment! More about the Safety Council and the Industrial Safety Seminar is at http://sasksafety.org.

Much of the credit for the Seminar's success goes to Will Putz, Manager of Special Projects with the Safety Council and his volunteer committee who work tirelessly before and after the Seminar to ensure its ongoing success. The staff of the Safety Council need to be recognized as well for all the "hands-on" work they do in preparing for the Seminar, hosting the event itself and following up, once the event is complete. This team rallies together and works very hard while having fun.

Thanks, Saskatchewan Safety Council, for another job well done. We look forward to the 38th Annual Industrial Safety Seminar in February, 2011 in Regina!!