The Role of Occupational Health Testing in Occupational Health Services
- Published on 2023-10-20
The promulgation and implementation of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases will lead to legalized management of labor health and occupational disease prevention in the future, and occupational health is facing opportunities and challenges for great development. With the establishment of a socialist market economy and China's accession to the WTO, China's administrative management system has begun to transform and gradually align with international practices. In order to strengthen health testing work, the following opinions are proposed for reference on the problems, challenges, and development directions of occupational health testing in China.
According to the relevant provisions of the Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Law, medical institutions engaged in occupational health monitoring must be evaluated and approved by the health regulatory department, and obtain a professional qualification certificate before engaging in this work. According to the requirements of qualification certification, it is necessary to have health testing institutions such as laboratories, instruments and equipment, professional technical personnel, etc. that are suitable for carrying out occupational health service projects. If there is no testing agency, the evaluation qualification will be cancelled. Health testing plays a very important role in the field of preventive medicine. According to laws and regulations, health testing institutions should independently carry out their work under the control of national technical specifications, operating procedures, and standard inspection procedures. Provide inspection reports in accordance with the law. Providing scientific and fair data is a highly technical and professional task that plays a crucial role in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and research of occupational diseases, as well as in the supervision and evaluation of occupational health. Health testing is a comprehensive discipline involving medicine, chemistry, and biology. Only by providing scientific and objective data through testing can the smooth implementation of health supervision and disease control work be ensured. For a long time, due to various reasons, health testing has often been a subordinate, auxiliary and cooperative work relationship in practical work. The initiative and notarization of health testing are difficult to play, only fulfilling obligations and assuming responsibilities, and the corresponding rights are limited without systematic work standards and requirements, lack of inspection and guidance from higher-level specialized departments, and lack of guiding goals, making it difficult to achieve scientific work Standardized management. Therefore, in order to play the important role of health testing, it is necessary to completely change the passive situation of health testing work and form a relatively independent and complete new system of health testing that is unified from top to bottom.
Current status of occupational testing
In the early 1980s, various provinces and municipalities across the country established occupational disease prevention and control centers (institutes). Over the past 20 years, grassroots health testing personnel have done a lot of practical work in the laboratory, providing scientific basis for occupational disease prevention and control, occupational health supervision, and making contributions to the research and development of testing and analysis methods. Due to the fact that occupational disease prevention and control institutions belong to medical and health institutions, most of the occupational health testing laboratories have not undergone metrological certification. The main work of occupational health testing is workshop air and biomaterial testing, and there is no unified national standard and method. Only some ministerial issued and recommended standards have had a certain impact on the work of grassroots laboratories and the improvement of testing quality, thus seriously weakening their ability to participate in international competition. At present, the development of occupational health testing faces many obstacles, such as a shortage of professional and technical personnel, poor working environment, low testing quality, insufficient attention from leaders, rising prices of experimental consumables, relatively low testing fees, and many testing work with high social and economic benefits, resulting in more investment than output in testing work; Due to the strengthening of cost accounting, the economic interests of testing personnel are affected, which directly affects the enthusiasm of professional technical personnel, causing some technical backbone to switch jobs, leading to weak laboratory technical strength; Due to insufficient funding, expensive high-precision instruments, low utilization rates, and difficulty in recovering costs, government investment in public health is the key to the healthy development of public health testing work. With the promulgation of the Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Law and relevant regulations today, in order to occupy a place in domestic and international competition, health testing work must be further standardized and legalized.
The necessity of standardized and legalized management
With the further improvement of various laws and regulations in China, occupational health work should be further standardized and legalized. According to Article 32 of China's Metrology Law, product quality testing institutions that provide notarized data to society must obtain metrological certification from the metrological administrative department of the people's government at or above the provincial level. Only data issued by testing institutions that have obtained metrological certification can have legal fairness, objectivity, and authority. At the same time, the detection and evaluation of occupational hazards is a serious and significant task. According to the Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Law, institutions engaged in this work must pass qualification certification, which means they must undergo strict inspection and evaluation. Only by meeting the unified standards of standardized management for testing work can the evaluation results issued have authority, impartiality, and legal validity. Therefore, occupational health laboratories must first pass national metrological certification and then undergo national experimental accreditation. Laboratories that have obtained national laboratory qualification certification are authoritative laboratories. Metrological certification has always been an important basis for laboratory management work and a necessary condition for entering a standardized, legal, and scientific management system. Only through metrological certification can there be rules and evidence to follow, and the quality of inspection work be guaranteed. The quality control and assurance system established after certification comprehensively controls the overall management of the laboratory, sample sending and receiving, sample testing, recording, reporting, personnel quality training, instrument equipment and technical data management, and inspection accident handling, in order to ensure the accuracy of testing results and improve testing quality.
Challenges Faced
With the continuous improvement of the socialist market economy and accession to the WTO, integration with the international community has become an inevitable trend for the development of various fields and professions. With the reform of the health system, public health inspection laboratories will enter society and participate in market competition. They are no longer the only designated health testing units, and must be recognized by the health administrative department to be qualified to engage in health testing and issue testing reports. When developed and advanced testing institutions from abroad flock to the Chinese market, testing work will face a new situation of market competition - testing units can independently choose technical service institutions. Therefore, health testing institutions are facing unprecedented competitive pressure and a sense of urgency for survival.
Thoughts on Strengthening Occupational Health Testing
The occupational health testing work can no longer follow the past mode of sitting, waiting, and relying on work, but should actively promote its own development, change concepts, functions, improve management methods and service attitudes, enhance the competitiveness of occupational health testing, strengthen laboratory construction, and equip advanced and high-end precision instruments; Mastering and understanding international and domestic advanced theoretical knowledge, testing techniques and methods through further education, training, participation in academic conferences, etc; Efforts should be made to improve the quality of testing personnel, continuously improve service quality and level, and comprehensively complete testing work with high quality and speed in order to remain invincible in market competition. At the same time, accelerating the pace of integrating occupational health technology services with international standards, participating in international market competition, and better serving the protection of workers' health can effectively safeguard the socialist economic construction.
Author: Gongle Technology
