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This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

Occupational injury in the health care sector in the United States rates among the highest of all industries. Specific to hospital support service workers (e.g., Food & Nutrition, Environmental Services), studies have shown that injury rates for support service workers tend to be among the highest of hospital personnel, and yet there is a shortage of research investigating the safety climate of these workers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine safety perceptions of support service workers. Surveys were used to measure safety climate leadership factors (per the AHRQ's Survey of Patient Safety Culture) to determine if they are related to individual safety perceptions, as well as ratings of work unit safety. Following established safety climate research, we examined the role of the work environment (e.g., supervisor support and work unit culture) on safety perceptions. We found that both supervisor and organizational safety leadership are positively related to individual safety perceptions and supervisor support. Organizational safety leadership and work unit culture were positively related to work unit safety rating. Our findings demonstrate that the antecedent factors and pathways that promote a positive safety climate among health care providers functions in a similar manner for support service workers. These findings contribute to a better understanding of occupational safety of this understudied work group and provide evidence to hospital administration that developing a strong safety climate among support service workers is not entirely different from what is required to promote a robust safety climate across an organization.

Hospitals in North America consistently have employee injury rates ranking among the highest of all industries. Organizations that mandate workplace safety training and emphasize safety compliance tend to have lower injury rates and better employee safety perceptions. However, it is unclear if the work environment in different national health care systems (United States vs. Canada) is associated with different employee safety perceptions or injury rates. This study examines occupational safety and workplace satisfaction in two different countries with employees working for the same organization.

Survey data were collected from environmental services employees (n = 148) at three matched hospitals (two in Canada and one in the United States). The relationships that were examined included: (1) safety leadership and safety training with individual/unit safety perceptions; (2) supervisor and coworker support with individual job satisfaction and turnover intention; and (3) unit turnover, labor usage, and injury rates.

Hierarchical regression analysis and ANOVA found safety leadership and safety training to be positively related to individual safety perceptions, and unit safety grade and effects were similar across all hospitals. Supervisor and coworker support were found to be related to individual and organizational outcomes and significant differences were found across the hospitals. Significant differences were found in injury rates, days missed, and turnover across the hospitals.

This study offers support for occupational safety training as a viable mechanism to reduce employee injury rates and that a codified training program translates across national borders. Significant differences were found between the hospitals with respect to employee and organizational outcomes (e.g., turnover). These findings suggest that work environment differences are reflective of the immediate work group and environment, and may reflect national health care system differences.

The modern workplace contains many physical and interpersonal hazards to employee physical and psychological health/well-being. This chapter integrates the literatures on occupational safety (i.e., accidents and injuries) and mistreatment (physical violence and psychological abuse). A model is provided linking environmental (climate and leadership), individual differences (demographics and personality), motivation, behavior, and outcomes. It notes that some of the same variables have been linked to both safety and mistreatment, such as safety climate, mistreatment climate, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

While research on workplace safety spans across disciplines in medicine, public health, engineering, psychology, and business, research to date has not adopted a multilevel theoretical perspective that integrates theoretical issues and findings from various disciplines. In this chapter, we integrate research on workplace safety from a variety of disciplines and fields to develop a multilevel model of the processes that affect individual safety performance and safety and health outcomes. In doing so, we focus on cross-level linkages among national, organizational, and individual-level variables in relation to the exhibition of safe work behavior and occurrence of individual-level accidents, injuries, illnesses, and diseases. Our modeling of workplace safety is intended to fill a theoretical gap in our understanding of how the multitude of individual differences and situational factors interrelate across time to influence individual level safety behaviors and the consequences of these actions, and to encourage research to expand the limits of our knowledge.

In this paper I utilize ethnographic data from the construction industry to demonstrate that occupational safety must be interpreted as having two different forms: the official policies and the actual operating procedures. This distinction is significant because it highlights the difference between rules that are stated – and may even be formally trained – and the rules that actually govern the workplace. It is this latter set of rules, a complex set of decision-making practices balancing the speed of work against acceptable loss, that actually shapes the worker’s individual decision-making. By illuminating the distinctions between these two forms of training, and the structures in which they occur, I challenge a common assumption of much safety-related research in construction, that worker behaviors and worker cultures are the most common causes of policy violations (e.g. Dedobbeleer & German, 1987; Hoyos, 1995; Hsiao & Simeonov, 2001; Lewis, 1999; Lingard, 2002; Personick, 1990; Ringen, Seegal & Englund, 1995; Rivara & Thompson, 2000; Smith, 1993). I argue here that what is often construed as “worker culture” is actually a structurally determined response to the unwritten rules of the construction industry. This is meaningful because the assumption that workers “choose” to forgo occupational safety protections as a cultural choice (generally construed as an enactment of working-class masculinity) is then used to assume or prove workers’ consent to the larger capitalist exchange of wages for work (e.g. Burawoy, 1979; Marx, 1867, 1977). By drawing on the media coverage of the workplace fatality, I highlight the costs and legal ramifications of such a dual system.

It is estimated that we spend at least a third of our working lives in the workplace and the duration of this, due to the extension of working lives through legislative changes and increased pension ages, is set to increase. Ageing of the workforce is a growing concern but health and safety issues cannot be used as an excuse for not employing older workers. A healthy workplace is one where the risks are managed and where workers and their managers work together to improve the work environment and protect the health of the workers. Furthermore, linking this to personal health resources and the local community can improve the health of all involved. Within the workplace this includes both the psychosocial and physical work environment. To create a healthy workplace there is a need to ensure risk management measures are in place and our older workers participation in risk assessment and risk reduction programmes. In addition to this, targeted occupational health promotion programmes may be beneficial. There are few integrated policies with regard to age and work but research does identify good practice, including participation of employees in change measures, senior management commitment and taking a life-course approach. While there are challenges in relation to age-related change, the work ability concept can improve understanding. The use of a comprehensive approach such as Age Management can help employers who have a critical role in making the workplace age-ready.

Julian Barling received his PhD in 1979 from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and is currently associate dean with responsibility for the graduate and research programs. Julian is the author/editor of several books, including Employment, Stress and Family Functioning (1990, Wiley) and The Psychology of Workplace Safety (1999, APA). He is senior editor of the Handbook of Work Stress (2005, Sage) and the Handbook of Organizational Behavior (2008, Sage), and he is the author of well over 150 research articles and book chapters. Julian was formerly the editor of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. In 2002, Julian received the National Post's “Leaders in Business Education” award and Queen's University's Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision in 2008. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, SIOP, APS, and the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology. He is currently involved in research on leadership, work stress, and workplace aggression.

Hospitals within the United States consistently have injury rates that are over twice the national employee injury rate. Hospital safety studies typically investigate care providers rather than support service employees. Compounding the lack of evidence for this understudied population is the scant evidence that is available to examine the relationship of support service employees’ perceptions of safety and work-related injuries. To examine this phenomenon, the purpose of this study was to investigate support service employees’ perceptions of safety leadership and social support as well as the relationship of safety perception to levels of reported injuries.

A nonexperimental survey was conducted with the data collected from hospital support service employees (n=1,272) and examined: (1) relationships between safety leadership (supervisor and organization) and individual and unit safety perceptions; (2) the moderating effect of social support (supervisor and coworker) on individual and unit safety perceptions; and (3) the relationship of safety perception to reported injury rates. The survey items in this study were based on the items from the AHRQ Patient Safety Culture Survey and the U.S. National Health Care Surveys.

Safety leadership (supervisor and organization) was found to be positively related to individual safety perceptions and unit safety grade as was supervisor and coworker support. Coworker support was found to positively moderate the following relationships: supervisor safety leadership and safety perceptions, supervisor safety leadership and unit safety grade, and senior management safety leadership and safety perceptions. Positive employee safety perceptions were found to have a significant relationship with lower reported injury rates.

These findings suggest that safety leadership from supervisors and senior management as well as coworker support has positive implications for support service employees’ perceptions of safety, which, in turn, are negatively related to lower odds of reporting injuries.

This chapter proposes an optimized innovative information technology as a means for achieving operational functionalities of real-time portable electronic health records, system interoperability, longitudinal health-risks research cohort and surveillance of adverse events infrastructure, and clinical, genome regions – disease and interventional prevention infrastructure. In application to the Dod-VA (Department of Defense and Veteran's Administration) health information systems, the proposed modernization can be carried out as an “add-on” expansion (estimated at $288 million in constant dollars) or as a “stand-alone” innovative information technology system (estimated at $489.7 million), and either solution will prototype an infrastructure for nation-wide health information systems interoperability, portable real-time electronic health records (EHRs), adverse events surveillance, and interventional prevention based on targeted single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) discovery.