Making It Work


Safety directors, RNs tell VM how safety eyewear providers help ease administering safety programs

Making It Work

Safety directors, RNs tell VM how safety eyewear providers help ease administering safety programs

By Seth J. Bookey
Contributing Editor

Employees in a variety of work situations are required to wear safety eyewear, along with other safety gear, by law. But, unlike earplugs, gloves and hardhats, prescription safety eyewear has extra requirements. Consequently, safety directors and occupational safety nurses are responsible for fitting employees properly, thus ensuring the safety eyewear will be used.

Crucial to getting employees properly fitted is finding experienced local eyecare practitioners. In many cases, it is the manufacturer of safety eyewear (in addition to wholesale laboratories) that signs a safety eyewear client and pairs them with local doctors and opticians.

Employees are more likely to wear safety frames when they feature attractive styling, such as the frames worn by this employee at Vistawall in Terrell, Texas.

Having a good working relationship with an ECP makes administering a safety eyewear program that much easier for employers. In Macon, Ga., Graphic Packaging International, a manufacturer of paper for packaging, and Armstrong International, a maker of tile products, have been paired with Caldwell & Son, their local ECP safety eyewear provider by safety eyewear manufacturer Titmus Optical.

Danny Highsmith, RN, occupational health nurse at Graphic Packaging, said having a close working relationship with Caldwell has been important. He consults with the ECP on a weekly basis. When he puts together an annual health fair to help keep employees informed on safety issues; Caldwell sets up a room to screen employees for glaucoma and eye exams, while Titmus displays new frame styles.

At the Armstrong plant in Macon, Ga., employees are given some safety reminders before they even enter the workplace.

At Armstrong, Yvonne Jackson, RN, COHNS-CM (certified occupational health nurse specialist-case manager) oversees a safety prescription eyewear program for more than 200 employees. Jackson has worked at Armstrong for 28 years and Caldwell has always been the ECP providing SRx. Jackson relies on Caldwell for “good communication and reliability. They keep me informed about [eyewear] changes and I can call them whenever there’s a problem.”

Nadine Jones, RN, who is an occupational health nurse consultant for specialty chemicals manufacturer Clariant Corporation in Mt.Holly, N.C., noted that she relies on Titmus and her local ECP to administer the program for Clariant, by keeping track of Clariant’s guidelines in terms of what types of frames and lenses are covered, and keeping Clariant’s maximum payments in mind.

Warren Brown, who has served as vice president of professional development for the American Society of Safety Engineers, and currently works for an automotive supply parts company, has been involved with safety eyewear issues for four decades. He noted that when choosing a safety eyewear provider, criteria include pricing, high-quality product and delivery, and helping employers find local ECPs. Helping to “make the process seamless” for employers is crucial, Brown told VM. “Adjusting prescriptions and resolving problems easily if they occur,” are essential to running a smooth safety prescription eyewear program.

Warren Brown

Brown noted that unfashionable frames, ill-fitting glasses, and Rx problems are the main impediments to safety eyewear compliance. “If the glasses are comfortable, employees will wear them. If you have to force them, then they won’t. Then, if they lose their eyesight, that’s the ultimate loss.” Brown also noted that they rely on both the manufacturer and ECP to keep safety directors and nurses abreast of “new frames, new lens types, side shields and AR coatings--all of these technological improvements make employees more likely to wear the glasses.”

Clariant’s Jones also noted that when employees liked safety glasses from work enough to wear them at home, this prevented off-site injuries, “It helps the company by decreasing our insurance and absenteeism costs.”

Custom Fit
Not all companies with employees in safety eyewear are alike, and safety eyewear providers are often chosen by their ability to meet a company’s special requirements.

Allen White, safety director for SMI Steel South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., oversees the eyewear needs of 380 employees, 20 percent of whom are in prescription eyewear. When the steel mill, which has always had a safety eyewear program, switched to Essilor last year for its SRx services, pricing was one criterion, but Essilor’s ability to service multiple locations for SMI Steel was also important. “Within the Essilor network, we have the same MDs and opticians who would be making lenses for prescription eyewear” locally for employees.

At SMI Steel South Carolina, employees help test out new safety eyewear, like the Uvex Stealth Rx Goggle.

Gary Barger, corporate safety director for Broyhill Furniture, a wood and upholstered furniture manufacturer in Lenoir, N.C., has been involved with training and safety there for 17 years. He relies on both Essilor and ECPs to help keep 1,100 employees in SRx. He noted, “Essilor has done a wonderful job of responding to our needs. They have tailored a program that fits Broyhill very well. We have a long-standing relationship with Southern Optical in Greensboro, and know those in the safety eyewear department very well. The safety eyewear program keeps evolving to adopt newer frames and methods to make it easier for the employees and opticians to order and fit glasses.”

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) freight railroad has 28,000 employees in 28 states and parts of Canada, and so for Robert Roy, director of field safety support (located in Fort Worth, Texas), keeping things simple is important. Something that keeps running an SRx program simple for him is paying one price for glasses regardless of Rx. “AOSafety Eyewear met our single-price requirement,” Roy said, and met a variety of customer-service needs. “I have more things to do in my day than hear employees complain about eyewear fitting problems.” Consequently, he added, “We established with AOSafety Eyewear that there had to be an 800 number dedicated to just to BNSF employees.” Eye exams are the employees’ responsibility at BNSF, and he noted that “We can pinpoint major cities where our facilities are located. AOSafety Eyewear selects dispensers in the area. The rest takes care of itself. We have employees call AOSafety’s 800 number and they find a dispenser near them.”

Welcoming Feedback
Brad Bauer, division safety manager for Vistawall, a maker of architectural aluminum products in Terrell, Texas, noted that feedback from employees is also very important in running an SRx program.

“Part of our culture is employee participation. Some workers have thanked me for implementing the safety eyewear program,” Bauer said, recalling an incident when a pneumatic nail hit a co-worker walking by--he showed how the glasses saved the eye.”

At Clariant, Jones noted that circulating the piece of metal and the damaged glasses that saved the worker’s eyes “were a great attention grabber during a safety meeting once employees knew that the glasses had been worn by a co-worker.”

Graphic Packaging’s Highsmith said that his company also tests new frames for Titmus. He does all side-shield installations personally, and he also notes that people “break glasses when screws loosen.” Consequently, he watches how they maintain their SRx and “can teach them to reduce failures.”

Gary Barger

At Broyhill, Barger noted that “Employees let us know when they need a change. We changed our policy to allow detachable side shields and employees have done a great job of keeping the side shields on their glasses.”

Brad Bauer

SMI Steel’s White partners with vendors on trying to eke out more longevity from lenses, and employees help by testing new products. “We sometimes ask employees in more severe work environments to test out new materials and pass along that information,” White said. “It’s like the dog with the itch--the new styles catch on when employees see them,” he said.

Vistawall’s Bauer also noted another side benefit of implementing an SRx program: “When we first put the program in, we had 200 people. What came out of that was that many had not had eye exams for some time. Some had glaucoma or pre-glaucoma conditions. Hopefully, we saved the eyesight of these folks.”

Volume Number: 19:09 Issue: 8/15/2005

© 2005 VisionMonday. All Rights Reserved

Posted: Mon - August 15, 2005 at 03:39 PM        


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