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A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees
BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to develop a strategy to optimize medical health surveillance protocols for administrative employees using video display terminals (VDTs). A total of 2453 medical examinations were analysed for VDT users in various sectors. From these data, using Bayesian...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6907276/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31829225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12938-019-0737-z |
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author | Gerassis, Saki Abad, Alberto Taboada, Javier Saavedra, Ángeles Giráldez, Eduardo |
author_facet | Gerassis, Saki Abad, Alberto Taboada, Javier Saavedra, Ángeles Giráldez, Eduardo |
author_sort | Gerassis, Saki |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to develop a strategy to optimize medical health surveillance protocols for administrative employees using video display terminals (VDTs). A total of 2453 medical examinations were analysed for VDT users in various sectors. From these data, using Bayesian statistics we inferred which factors were most relevant to medical diagnosis of the main disorders affecting VDT users. This information was used to build an influence diagram to evaluate the time and monetary costs associated with each diagnostic test and define an optimal protocol strategy based on occupational risks. RESULTS: Musculoskeletal and ophthalmological diseases were identified as the most frequent disorders among VDT users. The Bayesian network inferred age, sleep quality, activity level, smoking and the consumption of alcohol as risk factors. The blood count was the most costly test (5.23 USD/employee) and the second most costly test in time terms (4 min/employee), yet is a diagnostic test that has little influence on the medical decision regarding an employee’s capacity to perform their job. CONCLUSIONS: Current occupational health surveillance protocols for VDT users may lead to expenditure that is 54% greater than necessary. For many employees and employers, failure to perform a wide range of medical tests for occupational health surveillance purposes is subjectively perceived as a threat to health. Awareness needs to be raised of the appropriate role of different health areas, so as to optimize diagnostic efficiency on the basis of greater flexibility. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6907276 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69072762019-12-19 A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees Gerassis, Saki Abad, Alberto Taboada, Javier Saavedra, Ángeles Giráldez, Eduardo Biomed Eng Online Research BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to develop a strategy to optimize medical health surveillance protocols for administrative employees using video display terminals (VDTs). A total of 2453 medical examinations were analysed for VDT users in various sectors. From these data, using Bayesian statistics we inferred which factors were most relevant to medical diagnosis of the main disorders affecting VDT users. This information was used to build an influence diagram to evaluate the time and monetary costs associated with each diagnostic test and define an optimal protocol strategy based on occupational risks. RESULTS: Musculoskeletal and ophthalmological diseases were identified as the most frequent disorders among VDT users. The Bayesian network inferred age, sleep quality, activity level, smoking and the consumption of alcohol as risk factors. The blood count was the most costly test (5.23 USD/employee) and the second most costly test in time terms (4 min/employee), yet is a diagnostic test that has little influence on the medical decision regarding an employee’s capacity to perform their job. CONCLUSIONS: Current occupational health surveillance protocols for VDT users may lead to expenditure that is 54% greater than necessary. For many employees and employers, failure to perform a wide range of medical tests for occupational health surveillance purposes is subjectively perceived as a threat to health. Awareness needs to be raised of the appropriate role of different health areas, so as to optimize diagnostic efficiency on the basis of greater flexibility. BioMed Central 2019-12-11 /pmc/articles/PMC6907276/ /pubmed/31829225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12938-019-0737-z Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Gerassis, Saki Abad, Alberto Taboada, Javier Saavedra, Ángeles Giráldez, Eduardo A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
title | A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
title_full | A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
title_fullStr | A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
title_full_unstemmed | A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
title_short | A comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
title_sort | comparative analysis of health surveillance strategies for administrative video display terminal employees |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6907276/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31829225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12938-019-0737-z |
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