Dr. Meinhardt is currently the Executive Medical Director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Arnot Ogden Medical Center (AOMC) and is the author of ErgonomicsInHealthcare.org. Dr. Meinhardt is also the project medical director of two OSHA Susan Harwood Training Grant programs addressing ergonomic injury recognition and prevention in the healthcare environment. Under her direction, more than 6500 healthcare workers and healthcare service employers have been trained in more than 250 ergonomic injury recognition and prevention educational sessions in 33 different healthcare facilities over a two year period of time. Dr. Meinhardt has received board certification from the American Board of Preventive Medicine and the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners (ABIME). The NYS Workers Compensation Board has also designated her as certified in Occupational Medicine (CPM-OM) with authorization to conduct independent medical examinations (IMEs) as well. Dr. Meinhardt has been diagnosing and treating occupational injury and illness since 1989 with specific expertise and interest in the diagnosis, management and prevention of acute and chronic ergonomic injury in the healthcare setting.

Dr. Meinhardt has evaluated hundreds of patients with overexposure to a diverse array of ergonomic hazards in many different workplace settings. In addition, Dr. Meinhardt's clinical activities have included the evaluation and treatment of workplace injuries and the prevention of work-related impairment and disability. Dr. Meinhardt has also developed and implemented worksite prevention programs that have reduced workplace illness and injury rates as well as workers compensation and other direct costs. She has also designed numerous ergonomic injury prevention training modules for healthcare providers and healthcare workers and trained hundreds of healthcare administrators and employers in the past two years as part of our OSHA Susan Harwood Training Grant program activities.

Dr. Meinhardt completed medical school in Philadelphia, PA followed by an internship in Internal Medicine and completed a residency in Preventive Medicine at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Meinhardt also received a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health with specialty training in occupational and environmental epidemiology. She also received training at the JHU Injury Control Research Center in the design, implementation and evaluation of injury intervention and prevention programs. As a physician-epidemiologist, she has developed and implemented medical surveillance, treatment, and prevention programs that have been designed to evaluate occupational exposure risk factors and monitor epidemiologic trends in high-risk occupational populations.

Prior to her medical training in the 1980s, Dr. Meinhardt was designated as the western regional coordinator of the Rocky Mountain Occupational Safety and Health Project funded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the "New Directions" Program. In this capacity, she directed occupational health and safety educational outreach and prevention promotion programs that targeted thousands of workers at risk for occupational illness and injury in eight western states. She provided training to more than 2500 high-risk occupationally exposed workers as well as occupational health professionals through a series of occupational health education training conferences and programs in the Rocky Mountain region. This safety and health program was coordinated through a host of international, state, and local labor organizations in the Rocky Mountain Region. During this three-year program, Dr. Meinhardt developed and delivered a comprehensive series of occupational health and safety training programs to thousands of workers in the industrial, service, and building and construction trades as well as several major apprenticeship programs. She also acted as a liaison to both state and federal agencies responsible for workplace health and safety compliance.

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Patricia L. Meinhardt, MD, MPH, MA, Author

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