These could include reductions in exposure levels, in pecific illnesses or injuries, of damaged-material costs or loss of work due to damaged equipment, or in program costs per covered employee. The purpose of the work group is to move forward while recognizing and balancing competing pressures. Characteristic conflicts are sketched below. When an occupational health and safety program begins, case finding may initially increase the frequency of work-related illness. Costs savings result later as case severity, if not incidence, decreases.
Programs struggle with the difficulty in measuring avoided costs.
The occupational health care service may balk at choosing control strategies, preferring to initiate all available control strategies to address a workplace health concern. Alternatively, they may shy away from recommending necessary, but costly control strategies for fear of administration hostility. The EHS group typically feels ownership of the control program. The EHS team may think that the OHC team is eternally second-guessing and micro managing their program. Clinical medicine focuses on the individual and many clinicians are weak when it comes to devising solutions for populations.