EI2 Programs Help Keep Georgia Businesses Lean and Healthy

by Jerry Grillo

Trey Sawyers, Katie Hines, and Sean Castillo are helping keep Georgia businesses lean and safe. (Photo: Jerry Grillo)

Sean Castillo is in the win-win business. As an industrial hygienist in the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), his job is to ensure that employees are safe in their workspaces, and when he does that, he simultaneously improves a company’s performance.

That’s been a theme for Castillo and his colleagues in the Safety, Health, Environmental Services (SHES) program and their partners in the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP), part of EI2’s suite of programs aimed at helping Georgia businesses thrive.

“A healthier workforce is healthy for business,” said Castillo, part of the SHES team of consultants who often work closely with their GaMEP counterparts to improve safety while also maximizing productivity.

This team of experts from EI2 assist companies trying to reach that critical intersection of both, combining smart ergonomics and safety enhancements with lean manufacturing practices. This can solve human performance gaps due to fatigue, heat, or some other environmental stressor, while helping businesses continue to improve their production processes and, ultimately, their bottom line.

These stressors cost U.S. industry billions of dollars each year — fatigue, for example, is responsible for about $136 billion in lost productivity.

“Protecting your employee — investing in safety now — saves a lot of money later,” Castillo said. “It equates to less money spent on workers compensation and less employee turnover, which means less time training new employees, and that ideally leads to a more efficient process in the workplace.”

It takes careful and intentional collaboration to bring those moving pieces together, and inextricably linked programs like SHES and GaMEP can help orchestrate all of that.

Ensuring Safe Workspaces

SHES is staffed by safety consultants, like Castillo, who provide a free and essential service to Georgia businesses. They help companies ensure that they meet or exceed the standards set by the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), mainly through SHES’ flagship OSHA 21(d) Consultation Program.

“Our job is to ensure that workspaces and processes are designed so that anybody can perform the work safely,” said Trey Sawyers, a safety, health, and ergonomics consultant on the SHES team, aiding small and mid-sized businesses in Georgia. When a company reaches out to SHES to apply for the free, confidential OSHA consultation program, a consultant like Sawyers gets assigned to the task, “based on our area of expertise,” said Sawyers, an expert in ergonomics, which is the science of designing and adapting a workspace to efficiently suit the physical and mental needs and limitations of workers.

“If a company is having ergonomic issues — maybe they’re experiencing a lot of strains and sprains — then I might get the call because of my knowledge and understanding of anthropometry, and then I’ll go take a close look at the facility,” Sawyers said. Anthropometry is the scientific study of a human’s size, form, and functional capacity.

SHES consultants can identify potential workplace hazards, provide guidance on how to comply with OSHA standards, and establish or improve safety and health programs in the company.

“The caveat is the company has to correct any serious hazards that we find,” said Castillo, who visits a wide range of workspaces in his role. For instance, his job will take him to construction and manufacturing sites, gun ranges, even office settings. “We do noise and air monitoring at all different types of workplaces. I was at a primary care clinic the other day. And over the past few years, we’ve had a significant emphasis on stone fabricators, looking for overexposures to respirable crystalline silica.”

Silica, which is dust residue from the process of creating marble and quartz slabs, can lead to a lung disease called silicosis. OSHA established new limits that cut the permissible exposure limits in half, and that has kept the SHES consultants busy as Georgia manufacturers try to achieve and maintain compliance.

Keeping Companies Cool

Another area of growing emphasis for Georgia Tech’s consultants is heat-related stress in the workplace.

“Currently, there are no standards to address this,” Castillo said. “For example, there are no rules that say a construction site worker should drink this much water. There are suggested guidelines and emphasis programs for inspections for targeted industries where heat stress may be prevalent — but no standards, though that is coming.”

The SHES team is trying to stay ahead of what will likely be new federal rules for heat mitigation. To help develop safe standards and better understand the effects of heat on workers, consultants like Castillo are going to construction sites, plant nurseries, and warehouses, and enlisting volunteers in field studies. Using heat stress monitor armbands, they’re monitoring data on workers’ core body temperatures and heart rates.

“These tools are great because we’re not only gathering some good data, but we can use them proactively to prevent heat events such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke, which can be fatal if left untreated,” Castillo said.

To further help educate Georgia companies about the risks of heat-related problems, SHES applied for and recently won a Susan Harwood Training Grant from the U.S. Department of Labor. The $160,000 award will support SHES consultants’ efforts to further their work in heat stress education so that “companies and workers will understand the warning signs and the potential effects of heat stress, and how they can stay safe,” Castillo said. “We’re sure this will all become part of OSHA standards eventually, and we’d like to help our clients stay ahead of the curve to protect their employees.”

OSHA standards are the law, and while larger corporations routinely hire consulting firms to keep them on the straight and narrow, SHES is providing the same level of expertise for its smaller business clients for free. Most of those clients apply for help through SHES’ online request form. And others find the help they need through the guidance of process improvement specialist Katie Hines and her colleagues in GaMEP.

Lean and Safe

Hines came to her appreciation of ergonomics naturally. After graduating from Auburn University, she entered the workforce as a manufacturing engineer for a building materials company, where “it was just part of our day-to-day work life in that manufacturing environment, on the production floor,” she said.

It took grad school and a deeper focus on lean and continuous improvement processes to formalize that appreciation.

While working toward her master’s degree in chemical engineering at Auburn, Hines earned a certificate in occupational safety and ergonomics (like Sawyers, her SHES colleague). At the same time, Hines was helping to guide her company’s lean and continuous improvement program. And when she joined Proctor and Gamble after completing her degree, “The lean concept and safety best practices were fully ingrained, part of the daily discussion there,” she said.

All those hands-on manufacturing production floor experiences managing people and systems prepared Hines well for her current role as a project manager on GaMEP’s Operational Excellence team, where her focus is entirely on lean and continuous improvement work — that is, helping companies reduce waste and improve production while also enhancing safety and ergonomics.

Hines uses her expertise in knowing how manufacturing processes and people should look when everyone is safe and also productive. She can walk into a GaMEP client’s facility and drive the process improvements and solutions that will help them achieve a leaner, more efficient form of production. And then, when she sees the need, Hines will recommend the client contact SHES, “the people who have their fingers on the data and the expertise to improve safety.”

These were concepts that, for a long time, seemed to be working against each other — the very idea of maximizing production and improving profits while also emphasizing worker safety and comfort.

“But you can have both,” Castillo said. “You should have both.”

Advanced Technology Development Center and NASCO to host ATDC Federal Healthcare Innovation Summit

Summit is part of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ national

Startup Days tour to showcase opportunities for entrepreneurs and coders.

HHS Idea Lab

 

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) is hosting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) and several other federal agencies in a daylong conference designed to connect them with local entrepreneurs and startups in the health and government technology sectors.

 

The ATDC Federal Healthcare Innovation Summit will be held September 12 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at ATDC. (Register here.) It is being co-hosted by NASCO, a leading provider of information technology products and services designed help U.S. healthcare payers, and sponsor of the ATDC HealthTech Program.

 

HHS officials, including Edward Simcox, the agency’s chief technology officer, are coming to Atlanta as part of the department’s Startup Days tour of eight cities across the United States.

 

Startup Days aims to engage entrepreneurs, inform them of HHS’ processes and funding opportunities, and feature a “Shark Tank” pitch competition for select HealthTech and GovTech startups. (Apply for the Shark Tank pitch competition here.)

 

“Health and Human Services, through its HHS Idea Lab, is always trying to find new ways to interact and engage with entrepreneurs in the technology and health spaces,” said Kirk Barnes, ATDC HealthTech catalyst. “We are excited to help facilitate connections between HHS and Georgia’s technology ecosystem and we’ve expanded this initiative to include several federal agencies that have an interest in HealthTech innovation.”

 

Other federal agencies participating in the ATDC Federal Healthcare Innovation Summit include the:

  • U.S. Food and Drug Administration
  • U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
  • Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

 

With the Shark Tank competition, startups selected to participate will be asked to deliver their five-minute pitches that will include information related to:

  • Traction
  • Ingenuity of idea
  • Problem solution fit
  • Market fit
  • Scalability
  • Potential to work with HHS

 

After the pitches, healthcare leaders from across HHS, will provide constructive feedback to help entrepreneurs get a better understanding of how they can better engage with federal agencies.

 

Following the Summit., ATDC is hosting Silence the Shame: Bringing Together Technology, Entertainment, and Academia to Address Mental Health for National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month will take place from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Tech Square. (Click here for more details.)

 

About the HHS Idea Lab

The Health and Human Services IDEA Lab, within the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, was established to encourage and enable innovation at HHS. We help HHS explore, test and accelerate solutions that improve the delivery of health and human services. The IDEA Lab is the Department’s go-to resource to solve complex problems with innovative approaches and best practices from federal agencies, industry, and non-profits. To learn more, visit, hhs.gov/idealab.

 

About the Advanced Technology Development Center

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the State of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Founded in 1980 by the Georgia General Assembly which funds it each year, ATDC’s mission is to work with entrepreneurs in Georgia to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of viable, disruptive technology companies. Since its founding, ATDC has grown to become one of the longest running and most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States, with its graduate startup companies raising more than $2 billion in investment financing and generating more than $12 billion in revenue in the State of Georgia. To learn more, visit atdc.org.

 

About NASCO

NASCO provides an integrated suite of information technology products and services that help healthcare payers address unique business challenges and revolutionize business operations. Owned by and exclusively serving Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans for more than 30 years, NASCO provides seamless benefit management, eligibility, membership, billing and claims processing support for Blue Plans, allowing them to provide competitive healthcare products in federal, state and multistate markets for nearly 25 million members. NASCO’s partnership with multiple Blue Plans cultivates a community that fosters the collaboration needed to promote innovation, deliver shared solutions and create a competitive cost advantage. NASCO is shaping the future of healthcare IT. For more information, visit nasco.com.

Georgia Tech to launch health technology initiative at the Advanced Technology Development Center

NASCO’s gift to the Institute will support development

of health technology entrepreneurs and startups in Georgia.

 

NASCO, a leading provider of information technology products and services designed to help healthcare payers across the United States address unique business challenges and revolutionize business operations, is making a significant commitment to Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) to create a new initiative for entrepreneurs in healthcare-focused technology.

 

The ATDC Health Technology (HealthTech) Program is slated to formally launch in July and Atlanta-based NASCO’s gift will provide the initial funding to support the current and future HealthTech startups in ATDC’s portfolio. The initiative is the third of its kind at ATDC and follows other gifts used to launch programs in the financial and retail technology sectors.

 

“NASCO views this partnership with the ATDC and the launch of the HealthTech initiative as critical to our mission to deliver innovative health services and to support the Georgia healthcare and technology communities,” said David Weeks, NASCO’s chief technology officer. “Healthcare is a highly interconnected ecosystem, and new technologies are helping us to both reduce customer friction and improve health outcomes. The HealthTech vertical will be a key incubator of new ideas to enable these changes.”

 

In addition to one-on-one coaching and resources for commercial success, the funds also will support healthcare-focused commercialization workshops, hackathons, and hosting industry thought leaders in healthcare innovations in regulation, production, and manufacturing.

 

The more than 40 startups in ATDC’s current HealthTech portfolio are building companies with innovative approaches to population health, caregiver support, billing fraud, precision medicine, genomics, medical devices, diagnostics, data analytics, and process improvements in drug research.

 

“Healthcare systems across the U.S. as well as the patients in their care continue to explore ways to leverage innovation and technology to reduce costs, improve patient satisfaction, eliminate waste, increase access, and improve outcomes,” said Kirk Barnes, ATDC’s HealthTech catalyst and who spearheaded the development of this initiative. “We are extremely excited about the partnership with NASCO. The company embraces innovation and technology to improve the way that healthcare is delivered.”

 

The NASCO partnership will help the Georgia economy by helping entrepreneurs launch viable companies in the state, said ATDC Interim Director Jane McCracken.

 

“We look forward to working with NASCO to establish this program for HealthTech entrepreneurs,” McCracken said. “We will leverage NASCO’s market knowledge and that of other leading companies in the sector. Combined with Georgia Tech’s expertise and organizations throughout the state, we will help entrepreneurs develop and bring to market dynamic, leading-edge technologies that will benefit healthcare providers, payers, and patients.”

 

About NASCO

NASCO provides an integrated suite of information technology products and services that help healthcare payers address unique business challenges and revolutionize business operations. Owned by and exclusively serving Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans for more than 30 years, NASCO provides seamless benefit management, eligibility, membership, billing and claims processing support for Blue Plans, allowing them to provide competitive healthcare products in federal, state and multistate markets for nearly 25 million members. NASCO’s partnership with multiple Blue Plans cultivates a community that fosters the collaboration needed to promote innovation, deliver shared solutions and create a competitive cost advantage. NASCO is shaping the future of healthcare IT. For more information, visit nasco.com.

 

About Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world’s premier research universities. Georgia Tech is a national and international leader in scientific and technological research and education and is the nation’s leading producer of engineers as well as a leading producer of female and minority engineering Ph.D. graduates. Ranked among the top public universities by U.S. News & World Report, the Institute enrolls more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students in fields ranging from engineering, computing, and sciences, to business, design, and liberal arts. For additional information, visit gatech.edu.

 

About the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Founded in 1980 by the Georgia General Assembly which funds it each year, ATDC’s mission is to work with entrepreneurs in Georgia to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of viable, disruptive technology companies. Since its founding, ATDC has grown to become one of the longest running and most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States, with its graduate startup companies raising $3 billion in investment financing and generating more than $12 billion in revenue in the state of Georgia. To learn more, visit atdc.org.