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For the past two years we have been working on ways to identify how Burnout Syndrome affects workers and the impact that technology has on this.

From the CATEDRA IRSST-UC3M .: I+D+i PARA UNA TRANSFORMACIÓN DIGITAL INTELIGENTE DE LA SEGURIDAD Y SALUD LABORAL, it is a pleasure to announce that our latest paper synthesizing our experience is now published in the journal “Frontiers in Public Health”. The paper is entitled:

“Agile Delphi methodology: A case study on how technology impacts burnout syndrome in the post-pandemic era”.

You can access the article through the following link:

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1085987

Abstract: 

Introduction: In the post-pandemic era, many habits in different areas of our lives have changed. The exponential growth in the use of technology to perform work activities is one of them. At the same time, there has been a marked increase in burnout syndrome. Is this a coincidence? Could they be two interconnected developments? What if they were? Can we use technology to mitigate this syndrome? This article presents the agile Delphi methodology (MAD), an evolved version of the Delphi method, adapted to the needs of modern-day society.

Methods: To drive Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) experts to reach a consensus on what technological and non-technological factors could be causing the burnout syndrome experienced by workers in the post-pandemic era, MAD has been used in a specific case study. This study formally presents MAD and describes the stages enacted to run Delphi experiments agilely.

Results: MAD is more efficient than the traditional Delphi methodology, reducing the time taken to reach a consensus and increasing the quality of the resulting products.

Discussion: OHS experts identified factors that affect and cause an increase in burnout syndrome as well as mechanisms to mitigate their effects. The next step is to evaluate whether, as the experts predict, burnout syndrome decreases with the mechanisms identified in this case study.

The Regional Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has just announced the celebration of its VI Congress on Occupational Risk Prevention. This event, which coincides with the 25th anniversary of the birth of the IRSST, will take place on November 16 and 17. On this occasion, the Real Fábrica de Tapices has been chosen.
Since its creation, thanks to Law 23/1997 of November 19, the IRSST became the managing body of the occupational safety and health policy in the Community of Madrid, having as its main purpose the promotion of improvements in working conditions aimed at raising the level of protection of the safety and health of workers.

In these 25 years, the IRSST has organized five congresses, with the intention of giving continuity to its preventive work by bringing together prevention professionals, putting them in contact so that they can continue to share their knowledge and experience in this field. In the same way, it aims to achieve a greater awareness on the part of workers and employers, in particular, and the rest of society, in general, about the importance of the preventive culture in order to prevent occupational accidents, occupational diseases and achieve a reduction in the occupational accident rate in our region.

The VI Congress will not only serve as a review of these 25 years, but will also include in its round table debates on topics such as new technologies applied to prevention (drones, simulators, big data), new challenges for prevention in the 4.0 world, new forms of work organization (teleworking), ways of communicating and transferring knowledge and the future of Occupational Risk Prevention.

The meeting will analyze, in a transversal way, the evolution of the accident rate throughout the history of the Regional Institute. In this regard, it should be noted that the Community of Madrid recorded in 2021 the lowest occupational accident rate (number of occupational accidents per 100,000 affiliated workers) of all the autonomous communities in Spain.

The progress achieved in preventive matters, together with the overcoming of the economic and health crisis caused by the recent pandemic generated by Covid-19, should make this congress a strategic reference in occupational health and safety, promoting safe and healthy working environments as a fundamental element for a competitive economy and quality employment in our region.

APSYSTAL (Asociación de Profesionales de la Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo para la Administración Local) aims to be the reference in which occupational risk prevention professionals in local administrations can find answers and support to all the doubts and concerns that the development of preventive activity raises on a daily basis.

Currently the association has more than 80 members from different local administrations. Among them we have technicians and doctors from the most important City Councils in Spain.

In APSYSTAL we understand that the safety and health of workers requires a continuous and constant learning in multiple fields (technical, scientific, health, legal…) in which your organization is a reference and we would like that, if necessary, we could count on your collaboration.

We are continuously improving the platform and adding new features, the last one integrating our twitter within the platform, so that from the main panel and at a glance, you will be fully informed comfortably.

In each European campaign EU-OSHA opens the call to recognize outstanding and innovative contributions to health and safety in the workplace. The Awards of this 2020-2022 campaign recognize companies and organizations that have demonstrated a strong commitment to the prevention and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the workplace and can demonstrate that the measures taken also bring benefits for the company’s productivity.

The examples selected at the national level will be used for dissemination activities to raise awareness during the second year of the campaign. Two of the outstanding examples will be selected to compete at the European level, one from a company with less than 100 employees and the other from a company with 100 or more employees.

The deadline for applications is September 30, 2021. The final result of this competition with the winning best practices will be announced in April 2022 and the awards will be presented in November 2022.

In a world of work severely affected by the current pandemic, both employers and employees have been forced to adopt new procedures and practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. Although vaccination will eventually lead to the relaxation of measures, it is unclear to what extent, and when, “normal” work activities will resume.

Occupational safety and health (OSH) provides practical support to adapt work activity to the current situation and helps to contain the transmission of COVID-19. In order to assist in this process, EU-OSHA has just published a revision of the EU guidance on OSH that was issued in April last year. The revised document includes examples of measures that can help companies achieve a safe, healthy and suitable working environment when conducting or resuming activities.

View and share the updated EU guide (in 25 languages):

COVID-19: Back to work: Adapting workplaces and protecting workers