by amputect on 11/5/18, 6:58 PM with 403 comments
by horseRad on 11/6/18, 10:29 AM
“I spent nearly one hour with Reveal detailing Tesla’s decision earlier this year to bring me and my medical team on site at Fremont, providing its employees with state-of-the-art occupational and musculoskeletal health care. I detailed our vision for exemplary patient care and I gave specific examples of protocol improvements and subsequent successes in outcomes in only four short months, including accurate diagnoses and reducing needless delays for advanced testing and treatment. I patiently educated Will Evans on how Tesla allowed me to give the same care to Tesla employees that I do to my private patients including ones who are professional athletes, with the ability to get necessary testing and treatment in a timely manner without being hindered by an often cumbersome California Worker’s Compensation System that sometimes negatively effects injured workers.
I counseled Will on the difference between subjective complaints of pain, which cannot be proven and are often magnified, and objective signs found only on careful clinical examination by an experienced physician. I even mailed Will a copy of a relevant chapter from the American Medical Association Return to Work Guidelines and offered to make myself available for additional questions. Research and evidence-based medicine indicate that deconditioning injuries involving sore muscles should not be treated with inactivity as this only exacerbates the problem, but should instead be treated by proactive conditioning, ergonomic modifications and supportive care. Not all patients in pain should be off work, at home and on opioids. In fact, it is most often in these patients’ best interest to have supportive care that enhances their activity, their function, and their well-being.
As a physician, my foremost obligation is to perform a careful history and physical examination, order additional tests when clinically indicated, make an accurate diagnosis, and deliver the absolute best care possible. If patients are injured and continued work presents safety issues for the patient, myself and my fellow physicians prescribe the appropriate work restrictions. Any suggestion that myself or any of my medical team at AOC allow external factors to influence our medical care in any way is false and inaccurate.
I advised Will on why ambulances should be reserved for life or limb threatening injuries and that every ambulance that is thoughtlessly called for a non-life-threatening injury is one less ambulance that is available to actually save a life rather than be used as a convenience. Most importantly, all members of my team are empowered to call 911 for any limb or life-threatening condition.
Rather than deliver an informative and balanced piece of journalism, Reveal has instead chosen to hitch its wagon to Ms. Anna Watson, a provider with whom we severed ties after less than two weeks at our clinic and about whom I cannot provide any additional comment as she is currently the subject of an investigation by the California Medical Board. Instead of highlighting the tremendous progress being made in both patient safety and patient care at Tesla, this report uses poor sourcing to tell a story consistent with a predetermined agenda.”
by will_brown on 11/6/18, 2:48 PM
It is illegal for “ride shares” to provide medical transport. The fact that an on-site physician would not call medical transport and put patients with crush hands/severed fingers in a ride share is per se illegal.
Next we will hear the “SV disruption cult” begin making their claim that those regulations only exist because the EMT lobby industry is spending billions for legislation to protect the market incumbent. Well don’t forget your extra $150 Uber cleaning fee for bleeding all over your drivers car.
by jernfrost on 11/6/18, 7:58 AM
I’ve dreamt of buying a Tesla but I could not ethically rationalize that to myself if this article is true.
It also shows the problem of measuring companies by specific metrics. It sounds like good old “juking the stats” (the wire).
It gives the impression that things actually end up worse because of how injuries are measured.
by modeless on 11/6/18, 5:37 AM
by _cs2017_ on 11/6/18, 10:36 AM
Reporters say Tesla is shitty. But reporters often lie and even more often exaggerate.
Musk says he cares about safety and all accusations are wrong. But CEOs often lie and even more often are uninformed or delusional.
If anyone has advice about how I can develop some trust in one side or the other, please let me know.
by AndrewBissell on 11/6/18, 5:43 PM
by AndrewBissell on 11/6/18, 8:03 PM
https://twitter.com/PlainSite/status/1059875691263483904
According to the tender it used to get the Tesla engagement, one of Access Omnicare's explicit objectives was to reduce OSHA recordability:
by eduah on 11/6/18, 5:21 AM
https://www.tesla.com/blog/one-year-in-tesla-update
You don't pass a 4 month long safety inspection by California OSHA by making injured workers continue working.
"News organization" writes article about a company in California under reporting and hiding injuries, leading to a 4 month OSHA investigation that completely clears company of the accusation. Do they retract the accusation, write an article on why they made the previous accusations given we now know they were wrong?
No, they write a new article making new accusations about the company.
by Animats on 11/6/18, 7:14 AM
by ToFab123 on 11/6/18, 9:37 AM
by neuralRiot on 11/6/18, 9:17 PM
by blablabla123 on 11/6/18, 6:06 PM
Tesla obviously sucks at everything when it comes to workers. But recommending stretches can make things worse if it’s not clear what kind of back problem it is. In any case I think it’s all about liability and costs.
by black6 on 11/6/18, 5:27 AM
by monochromatic on 11/6/18, 5:23 AM
Never heard of it. Strike 1.
by avoutthere on 11/6/18, 2:18 PM
by jsight on 11/6/18, 3:43 PM
by mcguire on 11/6/18, 2:47 PM
Ok.
How different is this from the policies of most auto factories? They are all incentivised to minimize the number of reported injuries.
by Latteland on 11/6/18, 7:09 AM
But since osha found tesla was doing a good enough job after months of investigation, it's hard to trust this report. I searched google news for osha penalties and found issues about nail gun injuries, plumbing, a death of a worker at a winery, metal working, foundry, etc. So I don't see them as just letting tesla get a free ride.
Could it be that tesla meets the legal requirements but some injuries aren't well treated? I like tesla generally but I want to see them treat their workers well. I'd like to see a more mainstream media investigation further, like the ny times maybe.
With tesla there was also an incredible negative fud campaign about them, leading to many sensible financial journalists mystified that they didn't go out of business. So I am struggling to be neutral about this story.