Comprehensive Health Services’ Expertise Sought for News Articles Across Several Industries
Occupational Health and Wellness Programs of
Critical Interest to Employers

VIENNA, VA. – July 30, 2005 – Comprehensive Health Services (CHS), a nationwide occupational health and wellness services company, has been tapped several times this summer to provide insight and comment to the media on various occupational health and wellness topics of critical interest to employers.

For their study on hurricane fatigue, Cheryl Chang and Kaye Whitson were interviewed by Rocky Scott of the Tallahassee Democrat. In a July 3 article entitled “Wind, Rain And Stress Hurricane Season Brings Emotional Damage, Too”, several of Chang’s and Whitson’s observations from the study were noted, including:

• “Chang and Whitson saw post-storm stress in their co-workers and devised a study to identify stress issues and help employers and managers deal with work-force emotional problems. ‘As each hurricane hit,’ said Chang, a project supervisor in an office of about 70 employees, ‘people (at the company's office) became more robotic.’ Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne lashed the area and, Chang said, there are a number of buildings that still need repair. Seeing the damage reminds workers daily of the storms, and that also keeps stress levels high, she said. Whitson, a lead nurse at Comprehensive Health Services, a company that provides guidance in worker health-care issues for employers, said post-hurricane stress had manifested itself constantly in the 10 months since the first storm struck.”

In the summer issue of Employment Relations Today, which is targeted mainly to human resource executives, CHS’ Dr. John Foulke co-authored an article on the strategic business advantages of comprehensive workforce health management. One of the things he noted was:

• “In a search for a more effective solution to rising health-care costs, workforce health management has emerged as a new strategy. This approach recognizes the importance of the relationship between employee health, health-care expenditures, and workplace performance. Healthier employees consume fewer health-care dollars, are absent from work less often, and are more productive. Moreover, because the cost of lost productivity due to illness or injury amounts to between two and seven times the related health-care costs, the value of keeping employees healthy becomes paramount and makes good business sense.”

The Occupational Health Management newsletter sought Jennifer Lim’s expertise on occupational nursing for its July article entitled, “Employers Say OHNs are Invaluable to Business.” Included among her comments was:

• “A company’s nurse is like a pebble dropped into the center of a pond, she notes, creating ripples that affect employee health, work force retention, regulatory compliance, and spending. ‘Occupational health nurses [OHNs] are considered the key to a company’s health,’ Lim says. ‘We used to be ‘the Band-Aid nurses,’ but now…we administrate programs, and make sure the company is in compliance for those programs. ‘Employers know the importance of a well work force, and who better to deliver that message than a nurse, the person who surveys show is the most trusted of all health care professionals?’”

For further information on CHS’ industry experts or to read more of these articles, please call or email CHS’ press contacts.

About CHS

Founded in 1975, CHS is a leader in the design, implementation and management of nationwide occupational health and wellness programs. Serving Fortune 1000 corporations and the largest federal agencies, CHS delivers customized solutions for maintaining a healthier, more stable and productive workforce. With in-house medical professionals, a national network of CHS-certified physicians and health care providers, and a proactive approach fortified by a time-tempered foundation of best practices, CHS partners with its customers to provide flexible, performance-based workforce wellness and health programs that result in bottom line benefits across the organization. A member of the Founder’s Circle of the Occupational and Environmental Health Foundation, CHS also is a charter sponsor of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) Corporate Health Achievement Award. For more information, visit the CHS web site at http://www.chsmedical.com.

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