Health and Safety Advisor for Home Care Agencies: Identifying Ways to Improve the Health and Safety of Workers and Patients Home care workers make up a growing group of employees who find, communicate with, and serve individuals who are not part of traditional facility based health care delivery systems. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the industry providing nursing care and personal care in patients’ homes added jobs faster than any other segment of the U.S. economy, with 500,000 employees in 1994. Looking to the future, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook states that health care occupations are expected to increase more than twice as fast as the whole economy. Home care workers face unique injury and illness risk factors in their work. Workers are required to perform an challenging set of tasks in constantly changing work settings. Patient and clients have multiple physical limitations, which result in increased worker risk for injury. Home care settings present a less standardized, predictable and controlled work setting. This is a challenge to employees and employers. Employers and employees may have little or no knowledge about or control over conditions in patients’ homes and workers usually do not have the opportunity to request assistance with particularly difficult or dangerous activities. The following materials were developed in cooperation with home care employers, employees, and government agency representatives. The Advisor is designed as a workbook to help improve your health and safety program. After assessing your program, you may work through a series of interactive tools, used by yourself or with a group, for areas needing improvement. Suggested methods for use include: Complete the Employer’s Health and Safety Advisor to identify the strengths and areas for improvement in your existing health and safety program. Review the materials included in the "Advisor" and select the tools that would be useful in enhancing your health and safety program. Use the exercises and tools as a self-study guide for developing a plan to identify potential hazards and control strategies (answers to these exercises will be found in Appendix B). Use the exercises to train employees on specific health and safety topics. Contact organizations on the resource list to provide support and assistance in the development and implementation of a health and safety program.