In August of 2007, the University of California contracted with Remedy Interactive (RI) to implement RI’s interactive online injury prevention program throughout the UC system.   Risk Services in the Office of the President and the UC Merced Office of Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) have implemented this program here as Ergonomic Computer Assisted Training, or Ergo-CAT. The goal of Ergo-CAT is to prevent repetitive motion injuries associated with ergonomic risks of computer usage and, thus, conserve human and fiscal resources.   Ergo-CAT is just one element of UC Merced's ergonomic program... 

 

After logging into Ergo-CAT, an employee responds to a series of assessment slides which pose questions about the physical orientation of the employee’s computer workstation and computer usage. In addition, Ergo-CAT presents a series of educational slides to train employees on proper ergonomic computer usage. After the employee completes the assessment, Ergo-CAT provides a report back to the employee, indicating whether the employee is in a High, Moderate or Low risk category, what specific issues are affecting their risk and what corrective steps can be taken by the employee to lower his/her risk level. More focused follow-up assessment is provided to those employess in the High Risk category and/or experiencing frequent discomfort. 

 

EH&S has successfully rolled out Ergo-CAT  to Facilities Management, Business and Financial Services, Human Resources, University Police and IT. Seventy four employees have completed the Ergo-CAT program thus far and the High Risk category has been reduced by 40% through corrective actions implemented by the employees and effective follow up assessments by EH&S.