Heat Stress Hazards And Control Measures

 Heat Stress Prevention
Heat stress prevention in the workplace is something that all employees in relevant fields should be cognizant of. The human body must maintain a temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The range in which we as homo sapiens can deviate from that precise temperature without profound medical implications is relatively narrow. Therefore, it is vital to employers and employees that we never facilitate a situation where individuals risk their health by conducting work in excessive heat that would lead to an adversarial change in body temperature. If left unmonitored, workers could experience either heat exhaustion or, even worse, heat stroke that could be life-threatening. 

Heat stress prevention guidelines and heat stress training are usually taught in the onboarding process for various professionals such as firefighters and construction workers. 

In matters pertaining to heat stress prevention, construction comes up quite often as this is an industry where many heat-related injuries occur. To avoid such scenarios, employers work with various types of heat stress hazards and control measures to provide a safe working environment for all. 

These exact measures will depend on the specifics of the working environment, whether the circumstances that expose workers to heat are caused by weather and climate, or if the heat exposure is coming from heavy machinery and other running equipment that is releasing heat into the environment. 

If the environment is indoors, many rely upon a heat stress monitoring system that can track both temperature and humidity and thus alert personnel if these conditions change in a way that would place workers at risk.

Industries and individual businesses are not left to their own devices in this regard. 

When it comes to heat stress training, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) provides a wealth of regulations and guidelines for employers to follow, both on how to prevent a heat-related incident and how to respond if one should occur. 

You can learn more about how our software helps compliance professionals in these case studies:

Discount Drug Mart: Power Outage Protection + Compliance Automation

Problem: Transitioning from manual temperature logs and reactive power outage management

Solution: Adopting Sonicu's advanced system for seamless temperature monitoring and real-time power outage alerts across its 77 locations.

Hendricks Health: From Nutrition to the OR

Problem: The need to improve compliance and safety across various departments, starting from nutrition to the operating rooms.

Solution: Upgraded monitoring systems to enhance patient safety and streamline compliance across multiple facilities, including local YMCA rehabilitation facilities.

IU Health: Enterprise Monitoring

Problem: Challenges of using a locally based server and multiple monitoring solutions across departments.

Solution: Transitioned to a single, cloud-based solution with Sonicu to enhance monitoring capabilities across more than a dozen locations and the IU School of Medicine.

Engineering Controls For Heat Stress

To prevent situations of heat stress, every employer should have some form of a heat stress management plan. 

What that will look like depends on the nature of the job environment and the nature of the work done in that environment. There are plenty of resources available for companies to use, such as the Heat Stress Toolbox Talk PDF. 

Regardless of which materials they use, employers will need to incorporate a heat stress chart that outlines what temperatures and humidity levels are safe and unsafe for employees to work in. This is the best way to keep your people informed so that everyone is safer. 

Once a policy is established for what the temperature of the working area should be (for those working in an enclosed, indoor environment), a temperature monitoring system can be installed to set administrative controls for heat stress. 

Once this monitoring system has been programmed with the desired preferences, engineering controls for heat stress can be activated to create a safe, controlled environment. 

By keeping track of temperatures, remote climate monitoring brings many benefits beyond the elimination of the possibility of heat stress. 

Here are a few other benefits of remote wireless temperature control.

• Reduced manual logging
• Instant regulatory report creation 
• Easy Calibration with SNAP program
• Modular design allows you to easily add more sensors
• Affordable subscription model 
• Flexible Transmission via 4G, Radio Frequency, Wi-Fi & Ethernet

Monitoring temperatures and other environmental factors using Sonicu’s combination of sensor technology and software can also be a great way to streamline your compliance efforts with the various heat stress regulations and standards. 

Heat Stress Policy

The OSHA heat stress policy has been in place for some time. The development of the heat stress chart allows for companies to recognize heat stress hazards and either mitigate them or avoid them in their entirety. 

Heat stress prevention comes both in regulating environmental factors and recognizing heat stress symptoms. 

A heat stress poster in the warehouse or kitchen could go a long way in reminding employees of exactly what heat exhaustion and heat stroke look like. 

The OSHA heat stress standard was developed in 1970 with the Occupational Safety and Health Act. 

Under this act, organizations are by law expected to provide a place of employment that “is free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious harm to employees." 

This means that it is the responsibility of the organization to make the necessary accommodations to manage environmental factors to prevent the injury and possible death of their workers. 

Regulations may vary across different states. For example, California’s Heat Illness Prevention Standard has a special clause that states employers must provide their workers with training, water, shade, and planning when the temperature reaches 80 degrees Fahrenheit at the job site.  

What Is Heat Stress

In order to address the threat, we must be able to answer the question, “what is heat stress?”

Heat stress is the condition that occurs when the body is unable to shed excess heat, thereby raising the core body temperature beyond a safe level. This condition is caused by exposure to extreme heat and/or strenuous activity in a hot environment. 

What is heat stress in humans? 

Humans can be susceptible to heat stress in the same manner as other mammals. 

Heat stress symptoms can include the following:

• Headache
• Confusion and dizziness
• Loss of appetite and/or feeling nauseous
• Clammy skin, excess sweating
• Cramps in the limbs
• Fast pulse or rapid breathing
• Fever 
• Extreme thirst

These symptoms listed above are typically associated with heat exhaustion. 

There are three types of heat illness: heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and heat stroke. 

Heat stroke is the most serious of these conditions. Heat exhaustion can be treated by removing a person from the hot environment and giving them time to rest and rehydrate. However, a heat stroke is something that must be addressed by a medical professional. 

You can learn more about how our software helps compliance professionals in these case studies:

Cryopoint: Mission-Critical Monitoring

Problem: Cryopoint faced calibration challenges with their legacy monitoring system and issues with a server-based system, putting critical samples at risk.

Solution: Transitioned to Sonicu's SoniCloud and its mobile-first solution, enhancing reliability in monitoring and easing operations.

Ohio University Innovation Center

Problem: Tech and tech-enabled startups at the Innovation Center needed reliable support systems for temperature and environmental monitoring due to the requirements of grant-funded projects.

Solution: Implement Sonicu for comprehensive monitoring of temperature, ambient humidity, and air pressure differential, ensuring necessary protection and compliance.

Hancock Regional Health: Enterprise Monitoring from Sound to Environmental

Problem: Disparate monitoring systems were taxing the staff with many manual processes, leading to inefficiencies and reduced asset protection.

Solution: CEO Steve Long initiated the adoption of a consolidated monitoring program for temperature, environmental, and sound, which automated compliance and reduced manual logging.

Heat Stress Awareness

With the dangers being so great, heat stress awareness is a vital aspect of any profession that has even the smallest chance of heat exposure.  

It’s crucial that your employees understand the risks of heat exposure and the dangers of heat stress. Communication of the risks and how to avoid them is crucial when it comes to keeping your employees safe. 

However, communication isn’t enough. You should also be relying on cutting-edge sensor technology to monitor temperatures so that you can proactively address any temperature-related issues that may come up. 

Heat stress hazards and control measures should be in place both in monitoring systems as well as in training. 

A simple OSHA heat stress quick card outlining the potential risks along with a 5-minute safety talk: heat stress can be the difference between life and death, especially when the job consists of highly strenuous work in a high-heat environment. 

The OSHA heat stress standard was established to give employers and other organizations the tools needed to combat heat-related illness with basic heat stress awareness. 

Reading those standards and complying with them are the best ways to keep your people safe. 

Heat Stress In The Workplace

Heat stress in the workplace statistics is not always uplifting. 

In 2019 there were 43 work-related deaths that were linked to extreme heat exposure. That is why it is critical to notice heat stress symptoms as soon as possible, but that is only reactive. 

Preventative measures must also be enacted via training with the heat stress chart, the heat stress toolbox talk, and other heat stress in the workplace pdf files. 

With a definitive heat stress definition, OSHA has mapped out the regulations and guidelines quite clearly, so employers need not worry about reinventing the wheel. 

Furthermore, you should also take action by installing temperature sensors so that you can know ahead of time when extra precautions need to be taken. 

Sonicu is a leading provider of temperature monitoring solutions for a variety of industries. We also provide the software needed to help streamline monitoring, alerting, logging, and reporting. Our platform is cloud-based and mobile-compatible so that you can have 24/7 visibility into your facility's environmental conditions.  

Heat Stress

Heat stress prevention should be a major priority for employers, not only to care for the welfare of their employees but also to ensure the heightened productivity of a healthy work environment uninhibited by heat stress. 

A simple heat stress training video and/or other heat stress training topics such as heat stress symptoms and the heat stress chart can foster an educated workforce that knows what environments are safe to work in and which are not. 

Heat stress in the workplace documents can be provided as part of onboarding new employees or as part of training when beginning specific projects that may require heat exposure. 

It should also be noted that heat is not the only hazard in the workplace. Depending on their industry, companies may need to manage a variety of different environmental factors to ensure the complete safety of their employees. 

The job needs to be done, but it should also be done in a safe and effective manner. 

American-based Customer Support: Robust & Reliable High Touch Service 

Software and technology is only as good as the people who stand behind it. 

At Sonicu, that means our team of American-based customer success managers who are never more than a phone call away to help field and fix any service issues. 

Our probes and sensors are placed in demanding frozen environments and our software literally sends billions bits of data monthly, meaning there’s alway the potential for a hiccup on either the hardware or software. 

We are committed to fielding every customer service request promptly and addressing our customer’s concerns promptly and professionally.

“I like to say that every refrigerator or freezer is like a car in that they all behave a bit differently,
and then every now and then you just get a bad boy who doesn’t want to perform as we need it to,”
Martha Rardin, Director, Nutrition and Dietetics, Hendricks Regional Hospital.