health and food

Mitigating the hidden risks of start-up and shutdown operations

While commonly associated with planned shutdowns and turnarounds, SU/SD operations also encompass routine operational cycles and processes that occur independently of these events. These SU/SD operations produce various risks that need to be carefully managed to ensure the safety, reliability, and efficiency of industrial facilities. 




health and food

Blackline Safety unveils new and improved features for G6 Single-Gas Detector

G6 will be on display at a global marketing roadshow at both the National Safety Council (NSC) Safety Congress & Expo in New Orleans from October 23-35, and A+A in Dusseldorf, Germany from October 24-27.




health and food

A legacy of safety and efficiency

Pulp and paper mills rely on functioning, quality refractory to keep the plant up and running. One singular shutdown can cost mills thousands of dollars a day in lost production.




health and food

MSA Safety launches the SENTRY io® Controller for gas and flame monitoring

Designed for easy use with an intuitive touchscreen operating system, the SENTRY io Controller can help users save time and reduce costs.




health and food

Safety first: Protecting workers in the oil and gas industry as fatalities and injuries are on the rise

Workers in the oil and gas industry, whether they work with pipelines, on oil rigs, as drivers or at well sites, face higher incidence and mortality rates.




health and food

Innovation in gas detection – MSA announces shared alerts for enhanced safety

MSA Safety’s innovative gas detection systems can communicate and share alerts, helping you keep workers safer than ever before.




health and food

Safeguarding the invisible workforce

Advanced gas detection and safety monitoring solutions emerge as indispensable tools in safeguarding lone workers.




health and food

Endress+Hauser radar sensors

Sensors provide solutions across industries and applications.




health and food

Honeywell and Chevron collaborate on AI-assisted solutions for refining processes

Collaboration aims to enhance refining operations and workforce with advanced AI-Assisted technologies, including a new generation of alarm management solutions.




health and food

A developing story: wearable technology for heat stress monitoring & illness prevention

Workers in many fields – construction, landscaping, oil and gas extraction, emergency response, firefighters among others – toil in high heat stress conditions. These tasks can lead to rapid increases in body temperature that raise the risk of heat-related illnesses.




health and food

VelocityEHS strengthens industrial hygiene product suite with Spiramid acquisition

VelocityEHS, the global leader in cloud-based environment, health, safety (EHS) and sustainability solutions, announced today it has acquired Spiramid, developer of the most advanced and easy-to-use system for managing industrial hygiene (IH). The acquisition adds Spiramid’s occupational safety & health software and unparalleled IH expertise to the most trusted EHS platform in the industry.




health and food

First responders get life-saving sensor readings, video surveillance

It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s a Squishy Robot, dropped from a helicopter or a drone to transmit crucial environmental data to emergency responders at disaster scenes.




health and food

In-ear exposure monitoring gives real-time hearing protection data

Excessive noise is prevalent across industries. From manufacturing to construction, agriculture to oil and gas, more than 22 million U.S. workers are exposed to hazardous noise each year.1 Wherever unsafe levels of noise exist, employers are responsible for providing hearing protection devices (HPDs).




health and food

Big Pharma company takes on the “new view”

Allergan plc, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a global pharmaceutical company. ISHN asked David Eherts, PhD, CIH, Vice President Global EHS, based in Madison, NJ, to explain how the company is implementing the “New View” of safety.




health and food

Getting there first: Location tags enable fast, urgent response

ISHN recently exchanged an email Q&A with Amanda Alexander, global product manager for Emerson’s Location Awareness System.




health and food

Mobile app identifies safety, work at height, weather exposure risks

Responses provided by Carol Hanover, Field Director, Risk Control, Travelers




health and food

Top products of the week

Technology to enhance machine guarding safety and enhance field operations and new forms of foot protection are the top occupational safety and health products of the week.




health and food

Delegating safety to employees

We sat down with Matthew Elson, CEO of SHE Softwares to discuss implementing safety programs, and a positive safety culture for workers. Below are excerpts from that conversation.




health and food

Globe and Mail highlights Blackline Safety’s G7 wearable as a winning product, propelling Canada’s top growing companies

The G7 connected wearable from Blackline Safety (TSX.V: BLN) was one of five products highlighted by the Globe and Mail in their new Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing companies. Having earned position No. 231 on the ranking, Blackline achieved a three-year revenue growth of 145%.




health and food

Hearing Protection Fit Testing: How NIOSH revolutionized practices

When loud noises cannot be reduced or eliminated through engineering controls, workers who are exposed to them must use hearing protection devices (HPDs) to conserve their hearing. This notion is not new, nor is the concept that HPDs require fit-testing to be effective.




health and food

eCompliance unveils concept app: eC Edge

eCompliance unveils its newest advancement in their product line-up at NXT 2019: The Future of EHS, their annual conference. The concept version of the eC Edge App was announced to attendees today to give customers and prospects a first-hand look at the advanced functionality the product will begin to offer in 2020.




health and food

Embattled Johnson & Johnson recalls some of its baby powder after the FDA finds asbestos

Tainted love: Johnson & Johnson recalled 33,000 bottles of baby powder after the Food and Drug Administration found asbestos in one container, The New York Times reports. The company, which once marketed its baby, body, and wellness products as being “for all you love,” has long denied that its talc-based products ever contained cancer-causing asbestos, but it faces more than 15,000 lawsuits from customers who say their products caused them to develop ovarian cancer or mesothelioma, a rare cancer linked to asbestos.




health and food

Connected technology is a game-changer

Traditionally, safety departments get opinions and guesses thrown at them, says Stinson. There may be a hazard. Equipment doesn’t seem to be working. “Now you have objective data all mapped out. It’s very important that this is objective data, so you know for a fact that a part of plant is leaking. It’s a fact, not a suspicion,” he says.




health and food

Wearable health monitoring

Back in 2015 I had a widow-maker heart attack. That near-death event focused attention on my heart health, particularly when I push to physical extremes during mountain backpacking. 




health and food

Your Thanksgiving travel may be dicey

Depending on where you live, you may encounter severe weather if you must be on U.S. roadways this week, whether you're driving for work or traveling to and from the homes of loved ones. Forecasters are predicting multiple storms from coast to coast, with conditions worsening as we get closer to Thanksgiving. Some 55 million travelers are expected to travel 50 miles or more from their homes for the holiday, according to AAA. That’ll make it the second-highest Thanksgiving travel volume since AAA began tracking in 2000.




health and food

Technology best practices: EHS technology innovators recognized

Independent research firm Verdantix announced the 11 winners of the annual EHS Innovation Awards at the Verdantix Summit in Atlanta. The international awards recognize organizations which have implemented innovative EHS technologies.




health and food

Top safety technology stories of 2019

Wearables, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) were all featured prominently in this year’s top safety technology stories.




health and food

Making sense of NFPA 70E

January of 2018 saw the most recent update to 70E- the workplace electrical safety standard developed by NFPA. While the standard itself is not a law, it was developed at the request of OSHA, which uses much of its language when assessing organizations for compliance. Many organizations also follow 70E to comply with specific OSHA regulations.




health and food

Six must-have features to protect lone workers

On a Tuesday afternoon, you send a maintenance contractor out to a remote station to perform a routine check on some of your equipment. Your contractor drives out to the nearest access road, parks his truck, and walks over to the site. When he gets there, his personal gas monitor alerts him to high levels of dangerous gases...




health and food

NIOSH tool can help enhance aerial lift safety

Whether they’re scissor lifts, boom lifts or some other kind of powered, mobile platform used to elevate workers to various heights, aerial lifts are very useful – and potentially dangerous. Aerial lifts can be found at construction and telecommunications job sites and in warehouses. They’re used for everything from painting, drywall installation, maintenance, moving materials – even changing lightbulbs.




health and food

Immediate worker distress detection & notification is critical

Working alone and working at heights for me began years ago as an instrument technician in a large steel mill in western Pennsylvania. We always tried to work in pairs but there were occasions when I had to work alone or apart from my buddy.




health and food

Hand protection “preventative tech“

We have gradually come to depend on cell phones and their apps for more and more information about our daily lives. The latest trend seems to be health monitoring that allows the average person to keep an eye on their vital stats. The future of hand protection is moving in much the same direction.




health and food

Six Must-Have Features in a Lone Worker Device

Many devices, including gas detectors, have connectivity features designed to transfer information from a lone worker back to safety personnel on site. Although connectivity features are a tremendous step forward, not all lone worker solutions deliver the protection they need.




health and food

KPA announces Vera Suite™ for all-in-one EHS and workforce compliance management

KPA, a leading software, consulting services, and training provider for Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) and Workforce Compliance solutions, announced today the upcoming release of the Vera SuiteTM software platform for managing EHS, workforce compliance, online training, and regulatory management in a single integrated cloud system.




health and food

Area Monitoring in a Nutshell: Everything You Need to Know

Area monitoring is frequently used as a temporary solution to help keep workers safe in industrial facilities where mid-term deployment occurs as well as for confined space entry and far-working locations such as oil and gas platforms.




health and food

Workers play a greater role in managing risks

Mobile EHS software is improving workplace health and safety programs by disseminating critical tasks – like incident reporting – and making EHS a part of everyone’s job. Now every employee has the ability to feed real-time information on workplace risks directly into a centralized location.




health and food

You need to know your gas monitor testing instruments are reliable

Modern day portable gas detectors are quite reliable and accurate. For enhanced worker safety and to be fully compliant there is a little known concept called bump testing. Bump tests are crucial when it comes to protecting your workers from hazardous gases and other air-borne toxins.




health and food

How to monitor workers in a confined space

With technology incorporated in nearly every aspect of our lives, you’ve probably wondered more than once whether someone was watching your every move. 




health and food

Giving frontline workers a voice: Q&A with Robin Fleming, CEO of ANVL

Why is ANVL’s product called an analysis and communications platform? Because it is a software solutions product with mobile apps in the hands of front line users, an app web-based for managers, and the back-end part is a platform to analyze data from workers. It’s a logic engine.




health and food

Politics surround Pregnant Workers Act

Rich economies need women to work. But women present a special health and safety risk at work when they become pregnant. How do rich economies manage this risk?




health and food

Macroeconomics is key to OHS

Understanding macroeconomics is helpful as you advance in your OHS career. Macroeconomics is the big picture evaluation of how an economy works based upon numerous influences at the local, regional, and global levels.




health and food

The great resignation: What is a job’s purpose and how does this affect OHS pros?

The Great Resignation, Big Quit, and Big Strike are just a few of the terms used to describe the phenomenon of the large number of people who, during Covid times, took drastic actions to remedy dissatisfaction with their job.




health and food

What’s that smell? Odor management should be part of your OHS program

How humans and other animals detect odors is an intriguing topic. Each OHS pro should understand the basics of how to interpret chemical exposures.




health and food

The impact of overturn of Roe v Wade on workplaces

The court ruled in Roe that, “A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.




health and food

Scope creep: Expand or establish limits of industrial hygiene capability?

Industrial hygiene began as a medical specialty in the early 1900s. Scope creep among OHS pros is occurring now and will expand in the future, too. The challenge for OHS pros, and others, is to know when to expand or establish limits of OHS capabilities.




health and food

Leaders with empathy are valuable

Who is more empathetic e.g., better able to recognize pain in a person’s face, a professional industrial hygienist, or a professional historian? A person’s empathy capacity may be partly determined by Empathy Quotient (EQ) scores.




health and food

OSHA’s proposed lead rulemaking

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturn of 1973 Roe v Wade has emboldened states to propose “fetal personhood” laws. What does this mean for proposed rulemaking for blood lead levels?




health and food

The vital need to conduct a lead risk assessment now

The cascade of generally well-known catastrophic events associated with lead exposure continue to unfold.




health and food

Do your health procedures measure up to NASA’s?

Covid-19 interrupted and disrupted many concepts in health science plans. Now is the time for NIOSH to get back on track.




health and food

Many OHS pros are being kept out of the loop with ADA management

Now that I have been personally thrust into the ADA-world, I am looking at the regulation with a much keener eye. I have many concerns.