iFish5

Fishing and fish processing is inherently dangerous work. The remoteness of being at sea or an isolated fish processing plant adds risk to the worker and owner of the vessel or plant. The maritime and food processing industries have made great strides in improving the risk of injury in the past decade. However, work remains to be done especially considering that illness constitutes a significant proportion of medical claims at sea.

Dr. Ray Jarris will present strategies for:

• Comprehensive Medical Risk Management for Employers
• Keeping fishers, processers and employees healthy!
• Screening of crew and employees to detect high-risk disease such as diabetes and hypertension and to ensure the worksite is prepared to manage known chronic disease.
• Design and supply of medical and first aid supplies
• Controlled substances management
• Access to AEDs and training for Sudden Cardiac Arrest
• Training of medical officers and first-responders
• Decreasing OSHA Recordables and Lost Time Incidents
• Reaching Maximum Medical Improvement
• The evolving legal landscape for US employers

Dr. Ann Jarris will present:

• Rationale and benefits of engaging a physician advisory service
• Importance of lowering barriers to utilization of physician advisory services and strategies to accomplish this
• Integrating physician case management with existing practices
• Selected cases demonstrating ROI for a comprehensive risk management service
• Retrospective review of injury and illness at sea
• Collaboration with NIOSH – new sources of data for research
  • Access to Ship’s Medical Logs
  • Blinded medical consultation reports and case outcomes
• The unrealized present and future:
  • Onsite Testing (in addition to standard vital signs)
    • Dipstick Urinalysis
    • Fecal Occult Blood Testing
    • Glucose Monitoring
    • Pulse oximetry
    • Coumadin(Warfarin) monitoring
    • Email photographs
  • VideoTelemedicine when bandwidth allows

Questions to the Audience – “what would you like to see if you have remote medical consultation available?; How do you see more benefit beyond what we have described?” The session leaders highly encourage audience participation and sharing of their challenges and success stories.

While everyone strives to avoid injuries and illnesses at sea, it is inevitable that crew members will get injured or become ill while far from assistance.  While it would be nice to carry a Doctor and a Hospital full of medical supplies on our voyages, there are economic and space limitations that affect how broadly fishermen can prepare for Medical and Trauma Emergencies.

Worldwide much of the emphasis on Commercial Fishing Safety has been placed on the prevention of vessel losses and crew survival when such losses occur, but how many of our fishermen know how to help an injured or ill crewman and are equipped to do so?  If the plan is simply to call for help when far from assistance, emergency care may arrive too late.  We often operate hours OR DAYS from the nearest definitive medical assistance and sometimes simple, early interventions are the difference between life and death.

Given the broad range of fishing vessels and fisheries around the globe, our goal is to provide iFish5 Attendees with the tools and resources they need to help determine reasonable levels of training and suggested medical supplies for fishing vessel owners and operators to maintain.

• Emergency Medical Training
• Medical References
• Medical supply Recommendations for vessels with:
  • 1&2 Crew
  • <5 Crew
  • <20 Crew
  • +100 Crew