2008 ORAU Annual Report - Oak Ridge Associated Universities

29
Worker Health and Electronic
Medical Records Management
Electronic Solutions for
DOE Facility Medical
Records: The Argonne
National Lab Pilot
Challenge: Established in 1946,
Argonne has an extensive past that
has resulted in medical information/
histories for thousands of former and
current workers, many recorded and
managed on paper.
Solution: ORAU leveraged a
partnership with Occupational
HealthLink (OHL)—and systems
developed for DOE’s National
Supplemental Screening Program—
to design and implement a highly
secure, comprehensive, and scalable
Web-based database system for
the administration and integration of
exposure data and medical monitoring
for Argonne workers.
Result: With initial implementation
in 2008, the ORAU-OHL solution
for Argonne is capable of providing
complete lifecycle health services
from pre-hire status to retirement/
former worker status, including
pre-hire exams, worker health exams,
and registry management, while
integrating ongoing job and site-based
exposure surveillance data. Clinicians
can enter worker data directly into the
system, eliminating multiple points
of data entry, and the database fully
integrates with Argonne’s existing
information technology systems. User
interfaces facilitate error-free data
entry as well as automated alerts and
notifications so that stakeholders are
Testing More Workers for Beryllium Sensitization
Beryllium, a metal used in many industries, including aerospace, defense,
and nuclear weapons production, can produce harmful health effects when
inhaled as dust or fumes from machining or manufacturing activities. ORAU
manages one of only four laboratories in the country that can perform the
beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test, which detects the reaction of a worker
to beryllium and helps identify workers who have or are at risk for developing
chronic beryllium disease. The laboratory is certified under the Clinical
Laboratory Improvement Act, or CLIA, guidelines. Having established a leading
lab for beryllium sensitization testing, ORAU is expanding to provide testing
services to more workers, nearly doubling its number of customers in 2008.
New customers include
• The University of Iowa • Idaho National Laboratory
(Iowa Army Ammunition • Johns Hopkins University
Plant and former Ames • Boston University
Laboratory personnel) • Center to Protect Workers’ Rights
• DOE’s Savannah River Site • Medical University of South Carolina
• Centers for Disease Control • URS - Washington Group
and Prevention
Documenting the Dose Reconstruction Process
ORAU and its partners, Dade Moeller & Associates and MJW
Corporation, as well as personnel from NIOSH, contributed 16
papers documenting the EEOICPA dose reconstruction process to
a special issue of Health Physics: The Radiation Safety Journal, July
2008, the main publication of the Health Physics Society.
The papers provided an in-depth review of the collection,
processing, and management of the required data; the assessment
methods used; the scientific basis for the assessments; and
the prominent roles of the health physics and radiation safety
professionals in the effort. In addition, this collection of papers
serves as the only volume that assembles in one place all the key
issues about the scientific aspects of the NIOSH dose reconstruction
process and the worker compensation program. Since 2002,
the ORAU Team has performed 21,678 initial, individual dose
reconstructions as part of a contract with NIOSH.
Radiation dose
reconstruction is…
the process of estimating the radiation
exposures received during the course
of a person’s work. In turn, the
reconstructed dose is used to determine
the probability of whether a worker who
has cancer actually developed it as a
result of the radiation dose.
The process is required under the
Energy Employees Occupational
Illness Compensation Program Act
(EEOICPA) for compensation claims
submitted by nuclear-weapons-related
workers (or their families) for DOE or its
predecessor agencies.
In FY08, ORAU’s Beryllium Laboratory
nearly doubled its number of customers
and performed a total of 3,464 beryllium
lymphocyte proliferation tests with only a
0.2% error rate.
informed of upcoming exams, urgent
findings, and actions required,
as appropriate.