FOH Program Contact: Art Plumstead, RPT, CIE
Phone: (415) 437-8123

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), such as carpal tunnel syndrome, represent the largest injury and illness problem in the United States today. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, estimates the MSDs affect 1.8 million workers every year, costing employers up to $54 billion annually.

Injuries often occur when there is a mismatch between the worker, work and workstation. Ergonomics is the science of optimizing the job to the worker --maximizing the safe and efficient interaction between people, their work systems, tools, tasks and environment to enhance productivity and minimize or prevent costly injuries.

FOH’s Ergoweb is an innovative approach to office ergonomics issues that include employee assessment, training and program evaluation by using web-based technologies. This is combined with professional ergonomic consultation to achieve the following goals:

• empowering and educating employees about ergonomic risk factors that affect their physical well-being and productivity.
• providing agency managers with key tools and information so they can prevent injuries especially to employees at highest risk.