A New Resource for Creating a Drug-Free Workplace

(Fall 2014)

GenerationRxWorkplace.com is a new and easy-to-use resource for employers

“Did you know one in five people in the United States abuses prescription medications and many of them make up our nation’s workforce?  You might not see how this can affect your workplace, that’s why we’re prescribing A Dose of Reality.”

These are the opening lines of the mission video for the new employer resource, GenerationRxWorkplace.com.  The surprising nature of this statistic is specifically what this site was created to address and combat – the impact of prescription drug misuse and abuse on the workplace.

As we have learned over the last several years, our nation is suffering a prescription drug abuse epidemic.  The website was designed to help employers understand the toll prescription drug abuse is taking on their businesses and gives them a way – a number of ways – to take action by engaging their workforces.

Understanding the Impact of Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse on the Workplace

“I wasn’t aware of how big of an issue this is,” said Stacy Legg, health and safety manager at Barbasol, LLC, after visiting the site. And Legg isn’t alone.  In fact, it was this understanding that triggered Working Partners^®, in partnership with Cardinal Health Foundation, The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy and CompDrug, to create GenerationRxWorkplace.com and establish the A Dose of Reality campaign.

“Prescription drug abuse can be a difficult issue to comprehend,” said Dee Mason, founder and CEO of Working Partners®.   “It’s critically important to our nation’s economy that employers realize how this problem directly ties to corporate productivity and bottom lines.  Even drugs that doctors prescribe to help people can often inadvertently become misused and abused with deadly and/or costly results.  Employers need to understand the skin they have in this epidemic.  They need to be motivated for involvement and given ready access to tools they can apply.”

GenerationRxWorkplace.com – An easy-to-use Resource

The site is full of state-of-the-art, free, easy-to-use resources for employers to educate themselves and their workforces about prescription drug abuse.  The materials appeal to employers for direct application, and the website has something for every employer, no matter what level of commitment they choose to make to this issue.   “I really liked how the information was broken down into different tabs to make it easy to review and go back to,” said Legg.

Beginning with the mission video on the home page of the site, visitors learn facts about how prescription drug abuse ties into the cost of insurance and productivity:

• Prescription drug abuse costs employers $42 billion a year in lost productivity.
• Nineteen percent of workers’ compensation costs are spent on prescription drugs.
• 1 in 5 people misuse or abuse prescription drugs and
• Private insurers lose $24.9 billion each year due to prescription drug misuse (which ultimately gets paid for by employers).

When added together, it is evident that it is in the employer’s best financial interest to utilize the site’s free tools and help their employees become more responsible consumers of prescription drugs.

Legg shared, “I think this resource could help employers educate employees on some of the more common problems with prescription medications that all of us face.” The variety of resources offered within the website enables employers to discover and apply specifically relevant information that their workforce will connect with.

Resources to Become Safe Consumers of Prescription Drugs

The video and the GenerationRxWorkplace.com website’s resources promote a memorable and applicable five point strategy for employees to become safe consumers of Rx medications.   The “Education and Training Resources” tab of the site offers employee training courses and includes The Dose of Reality course.  This highly engaging, state-of-the-art employee education course even meets employer obligations for several regulating authorities (e.g., Ohio’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s Drug-Free Safety Program).

The resources made available through the site include downloadable employee awareness tools such as posters that can be taped to bathroom doors, table toppers for use in break rooms, and an FAQ sheet. “I particularly liked the ‘Prescription Drug Abuse: Be Part of the Solution’ handout,” said site visitor Bill Carroll, EAP /DFWP admin for Bloom County.  “When approaching a topic such as this, being armed with a creditable fact source is a great help.”

Larry Monroe, safety coordinator at Guenther Mechanical, Inc. echoed Carroll’s sentiments after exploring the site. “The fingertip resources are simple and obtainable for employees,” he said. “This makes me want to give more time to putting a better package of information together for the employees. I can see these being used in toolbox talks, as poster awareness, general conversation and in paycheck stuffers.”

Outside of the employee awareness tools and education courses, the site also serves as a resource for employers wishing to learn more or who want to develop or advance their drug-free workplace (DFWP) operations.  Throughout the site there are whitepapers on how to qualify drug testing and Employee Assistance Program vendors, and to raise awareness about critical issues such as expanded opiate testing (a critical risk management measure needed by employers to test for the prevalent substances of abuse).  There are reams of additional resources to learn more about the issue, for use in developing education for employees and to link employees to assistance as needed.

“I think this [the site] is a very good tool for someone who is exploring DFWP,” said Britney Moore, human resource manager at The T. Marzetti Company.  “It is nice to have all the resources right there, versus having to Google search them and find the site and dig for the white papers.”

Even with all the information employers can share within their workforce and the tools they can use to implement or enhance their DFWP programs, the site does not overwhelm its visitors.  GenerationRxWorkplace.com is designed to empower visitors and raise awareness, not cause employers to throw their hands up in frustration with the prescription drug epidemic.

As Tara Schulz, human resource manager for Suburban Steal Supply Company said after visiting the site, “I continue to believe that knowledge is power, but to engage others, we have to keep it fairly simple and straightforward.  This site does that – it grabs you with key pieces of info and keeps you clicking.”

And that is exactly what the site’s creators intended.