Tag Archives: South Bend

Which type of Worker is most likely to Develop Chronic Back Pain from Work?

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Which of these two people are most likely to develop chronic back pain later in life?

A. Lumberjack

B. A Secretary in a modern office

The answer, of course, is B.  An office secretary, or business executive, or anyone who spends most of his or her time at work sitting, is far more likely to develop back and neck pain than a physically active worker.

Here are three of the major workplace contributors to back pain:

  • Slouching forward in your chair
  • Holding your telephone between your ear and your shoulder
  • Lack of movement during the work day

So, why are you still just sitting there. Get active now!  Here are some ideas from San Francisco State University’s Dr. Erik Peper

1.)   Support the natural curve of your spine! Office chairs should have lumbar support, a natural forward curve at belly button level. You can also put a pillow or rolled up towel behind your back to achieve this effect.

2.)   Adjust the height of your chair so you can keep your feet flat on the floor and your knees at 90-degree angles. You can also rest your feet on a prop, like a footrest or even a phone book, for extra support. Crossing your legs tightly reduces circulation in your legs and causes varicose veins, which look dark blue on your skin!

3.)   Remove or lower the armrests so your arms are at 90-degree angles. This will encourage you to hold your shoulders low, which your good for your upper back.

4.)   Keep your monitor about an arms length away and at or slightly below eye level. This will encourage you to sit back, instead of lean forward and reduces neck strain.

Stand Up and move around

Sitting (or even standing) in one position for an 8 hour workday can be very hard on your body!

1.)   Take short breaks, once every hour to use the restroom, get a glass of water, walk down the hallway, or just stretch. Sitting for long periods of time will weaken the muscles in your back. Stretching for just 60 seconds will counter the bad effects of long periods of just sitting.

2.)   Research suggests that about half your hours at work should be spent standing up. If you have a sit-stand workstation, alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day.

3.)   Strengthening your core muscles with exercise, such as yoga, pilates or sit-ups works  your stomach as well your back, which naturally improves your posture and reduces pain.

Workspace Solutions in Fort Wayne, IN, has ergonomic chairs, workstations and office desks that can help keep office workers healthy and happy.  Contact us to discuss how we can help your employees avoid the long term health issues that come from sitting all day long at work.

What ideas do you have for keeping active and not just sitting at your desk eight hours every day?

The White Board goes High Tech at Workspace Solutions

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Just about every business meeting today is centered around a “white board.” Notes, and ideas that surface during the meeting get written down. Presentations are made using diagrams and flowcharts. This low tech successor to the messy chalk board has become an indispensable business tool for the 21st century.

Now, Workspace Solutions and Claridge bring the white board into the world of high tech.

Now you can use your white board as a screen, and project any notes, documents, spreadsheets or photos from your computer onto the wall for all to see. There’s also an LCD version of the screen where you don’t even need a projector. You can then write on your white board, and save all of your notes and drawings in a shareable computer file. You can even email the information on your white board. You can have other employees in other offices anywhere around the world sit in on your meeting, and view what’s on your white board exactly as if they were in your conference room.

Today, you know that you could never have a successful meeting without your trusty white board. Once you’ve used a Claridge Solution board, or their LCD C2Touch screens, you’ll never be able to hold another meeting without it.

See it in action in the video, or come to our downtown showroom and see it in person.  How would you use one of these high tech white boards?

Workspace Solutions in Fort Wayne, IN. Every day we’re working for you.

Claridge Solution Board


C2Touch LCD Screen

Creating an Office Space for Collaboration with Hon’s new Flock Collaborative Solutions

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Everyone today is talking about collaboration, bringing employees together to share and discuss their ideas.  It improves communications, cuts down on paperwork, and helps spark new ideas.  Collaboration is likely to happen anywhere, or not at all, depending on the layout of your work place.  It is more likely to happen if you encourage it with proper office design and layout.  Since collaboration is still a new concept for many, the nations’s top office furniture companies are just starting to offer specific products that they have designed and tested to increase the collaboration process in your office space.

The Hon Company, sold inFort  Wayne and Northern Indiana by Workspace Solutions,  has a new line entirely dedicated to collaboration.  It’s called Flock Collaborative Solutions because the idea is that workers will flock to these areas to share their best ideas.  In the same way as cubicles naturally keep people apart, collaborative areas must lure people into their spaces.  They must also facilitate the needs of the collaborators, or the desired collaboration won’t take place.  Companies like Hon, and office designers like Workspace Solutions, have been carefully studying what type of furnishings and designs not only bring people together, but help them work together to create the desired results.  At the same time, they are aware that such spaces must still fit the décor and decorum of your office.  Many companies have learned that their collaboration area is useful as a recruitment tool, since perspective employees are excited about the prospect of a strong collaborative environment, and are even already experienced these in college.

So the bottom line is, it must function properly, and it must look great, or it just won’t work at all.

With the incredible rate of change driven by technology, it shouldn’t’ be surprising to find our workspaces are changing as well.   Hon’s new Flock Collaborative Solutions, from Workspace Solutions shows how we continue to innovate to keep your work space up to date and running at maximum efficiency.

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What if you designed furniture with the goal of keeping just the essential elements of function and form? You’d probably wind up with the Clarity seating series from AllSteel. Nothing extra, just what you need. The result is a chair that adapts to any space you put it into, and any type of work you are doing.

Workspace Solutions is proud to be an AllSteel dealer for Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indianapolis and most of Northern Indiana. AllSteel has been quality, innovative office furniture now for almost one hundred years.

 

When you sit on the Clarity chair, the mesh seat and back adjust immediately to you, providing instant comfort that actually anticipates your posture. Your comfortable at your desk, or anywhere you sit, and no matter which office task you are performing.

Contact us and learn more about the latest in seating, the Clarity Series Chairs from AllSteel and Workspace Solutions.

 

RFIDs help hosptals find equipment, files, and improve health care for patients

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During the summer of 2007, Capital Health System, an acute-care and teaching hospital located inTrenton,New Jersey, began tracking every medical file using RFID technology.  What is RFID?  It stands for Radio Frequency Identification.  Every file has a small RFID circuit chip attached to it.  This chip broadcasts an ID signal that can be picked up by special RFID receiving devices.  In other words, if someone take a patient file, and leaves it in another part of the hospital, the RFID receiver can locate it quickly.

 

Capital Health System manages 5,000 patient files. Each file is tagged with an RFID tag allowing it to be tracked from the moment it is created for a new patient all the way until the file is retained in storage.  The RFID readers can be positioned at various locations around the hospital to report in real time the locations for every file. Effieicieny improves, and liability is reduced.

 

Hopsitlas are also using RFID technology to:

  • Continuously track each patient’s location
  • Track the location of doctors and nurses in the hospital
  • Track the location of expensive and critical instruments and equipment
  • Restrict access to drugs, pediatrics, and other high-threat areas to authorized staff
  • Monitor and track unauthorized persons who are loitering around high-threat areas
  • Facilitate triage processes by restricting access to authorized staff and “approved” patients during medical emergencies, epidemics, terrorist threats, and other times when demands could threaten the hospital’s ability to effectively deliver services
  • Use the patient’s RFID tag to access patient information for review and update through a hand-held computer

 

 

The problem at Christiana Hospital in Newark,Del., where the emergency department has 76 treatment rooms that handle more than 100,000 patients yearly, was that triage nurses were losing track of where patients were in the treatment process as they were moved among diagnostic and treatment facilities. The result: The overall length of a patient’s stay was spiking above normal levels, and about 4% to 5% were leaving without any treatment at all.  An RFID system combined with computer software that associates patients with equipment and treatments solved this problem.

 

Recent surveys show RFID based solutions are really starting to take off in hospitals around the country.  Many hospitals see RFID solutions as part of taking the step into digital record keeping.

 

Workspace Solutions is teaming with Spacefile, a storage solution company that offers both RFID technology, and innovative physical storage solutions that allow you to store more in less space.

Collaborate with Allsteel’s new Involve

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Cubicles divide office space into private spaces all with the same function.  That’s great as long as everyone performs the same tasks and you never have the need for collaboration.

Involve, from Allsteel, was developed to support collaboration spontaneously at each individual workstation.  This makes work areas far more productive and efficient.   The collection incorporates soft seating to encourage spontaneous interaction, laminate storage options that support active work, and screens that define space and create varied separation. One unique solution supports all the ways work happens.

You can download the brochure by clicking here.

Workspace Solutions is your AllSteel dealer for Fort Wayne, South Bend and Indianapolis, providing you with 21st Century ideas for designing your office for maximum efficiency.  To find out how you can use new ideas in office design, contact us today at Workspace Solutions.

Ugly Chair Contest Underway

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Turn that worn out office chair you’re sitting in now into a brand new one. Enter our Ugliest Office Chair Contest. Enter on our Facebook page, here.
Then, you’ll need to get your friends and co-workers to vote for your ugly chair to win. Send your ugly chair photo to contest@workspacesolutons.com.

Stand up for your Health!

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Don’t take this sitting down! In fact, do yourself a favor and stand up to read this post. The May 2009 issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise published the results of a study of over 17,000 adults over 12 years revealed that those who sit all day at their jobs are at greater risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Exercise is great, but there appears to be little you can do to undo the effects of sitting down eight hours a day at your desk, unless you stop sitting. Then, how do you get your work done? Easy, with a stand up desk.

Workspace Solutions has some great ideas for a stand up desk arrangement. One of their companies, Humanscale, offers a desk that easily adjusts up and down. Combine this with a monitor arm for your computer screen, and with a simple adjustment, you can work standing up, or sitting down.

Workspace Solutions has a lot great ergonomic ideas that can make your office a healthier work environment. Call or contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss them with you.

An “Epic” Announcement

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Coming this fall to Workspace Solutions, Epic, from National, is loaded with layered surfaces and storage and organization tools such as pull out trays ideal for project work and stackers. Sliding doors, modularity and compatibility with the Exhibit Wall Rail Solution and WaveWorks casegoods further highlight its private office and open space application. Its Epicenter wall powers multiple workstations as well as supports eye level storage units for added convenience.

Use That Wall!

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Every building has walls and sometimes what to do with them may be a tough decision. Say hello to Exhibit™, the latest line from National Furniture, and now available at Workspace Solutions. It removes barriers and transforms the walls into purposeful design elements offering a variety of solutions for all workplace, collaborative and social environments. Exhibit’s efficient use of wall space and various inserts, such as slat walls and work tools, marker boards and tack boards, serve as an organizational coach, brainstormer or an impromptu art gallery. Exhibit lets the walls do the “heavy lifting” creating a lighter, airier aesthetic while providing easy access to electrical and data. Check out the video, then talk to us about putting your walls to work for you.

Exhibit Wall Rail Solution from National Office Furniture on Vimeo.