Preventive Medical Examination (PME)

As an employer you are obligated to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for your employees. This is not only beneficial for your employees, but also for you as an entrepreneur. It is well known that healthy and satisfied employees who are well cared for function better, are sick less often and are generally more productive.

In addition, it is quite possible that during daily operations your company is at risk of accidents, the cause of which can be traced back to an employee's poor physical and / or mental health.

But what exactly does ensuring a safe and healthy working environment mean and how can I meet this obligation? Of course, you can wait for an employee to become ill or become involved in an accident and then see if you can rectify the cause. The company doctor will be able to help you with this. For example, the company doctor can conduct a medical examination to see whether the accident might have been caused by an unbalanced blood sugar level of the employee. However, the company doctor will be particularly more interested in preventing loss and / or accident due to illness or deficiency and advise you to focus your policy mainly on prevention (in other words; locking the stable door before the proverbial horse has bolted).

What is the Preventive Medical Examination (PME)

The PMO does exactly what it says; it is a medical examination aimed at preventing:

• Physical and / or mental illness / complaints
• Absence due to illness or deficiency
• Accidents at work
• Reduced production
• Decreased motivation and well-being

The PME therefore goes much further than just examining a person's health in relation to his / her work, the PME focuses on possible health risks for physical and mental health in general. Moreover, the PME focuses mainly on discovering health risks even before there is an deficiency or illness. It is known that many are affected by a (starting) mental / physical condition, without experiencing signs or symptoms. In this respect, the PME can therefore be compared with, for example, the general blood test that the 50+'s on an annual basis in order to be able to intervene in a timely matter in case deviating values are found.

What does the PMO consist of?

The basic PMO consists of an extensive, standardized questionnaire in which possible mental / physical risks are identified. The company doctor will provide the employee with advice based on these risks. The advice is intended to achieve an improvement in a person's overall mental / physical health, but of course mainly to remove the mentioned risks as much as possible.

The PMO questionnaire focuses on the following twelve health aspects:

The PMO questionnaire focuses on the following twelve health aspects:

• General health in relation to work
• Movement (capacity) risk
• Dermatological (skin) risk
• Emotional load capacity
• Auditory (hearing) risk
• Cardiovascular (load capacity) risk
• Infectious diseases risk (formation)
• Airway (load capacity) risk
• Psychological risk
• Visual risk
• Vigilance / judgment risk
• Lifestyle

In addition to this basic PME, you can make the PME as extensive as you want. It may be that the type of work your employees are required to perform entails specific health risks. For example, if you have to work in a very noisy environment, you can choose to have an extensive hearing examination (audiogram) performed in addition to the standard hearing damage questionnaire. Or, if it is generally known that certain diseases that are not directly related to work occur in the society where you live / work (for example: diabetes, you can decide to have the PME supplemented with a blood test. For example, in our region we often advise to have a study performed on common cardiovascular diseases (the so-called Cardiovascular risk profile) and we recommend a blood test, blood pressure measurement and a determination of the BMI.

The company doctor will be able to assist you in determining what would be a useful package of additional examinations.

Interested?

Are you interested and would you like to know more about the PME or would you like to have a PME carried out for your employees? Please feel free to contact us and one of our advisors will contact you shortly to make an appointment.

Please send your request to: info@medwork.aw