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division develops and presents a variety of safety training programs, and <br />conducts in -house safety inspections to identify and eliminate hazards, which <br />also reduces the potential for occupational safety and health fines. <br />Ms. Kamaka's division does departmental safety checklists where they go <br />in to a worksite and do their own safety inspections, and they provide an <br />employee assistance program for troubled employees. An initiative they take <br />with respect to claims handling is the assignment of case management nurses to <br />the more complex claims. They conduct thorough, comprehensive claims <br />investigations and management to stave off meritless claims; they assign litigious <br />claims with potential for high payout to outside legal counsel; and they return <br />injured workers back to light duty as soon as they can get a release from the <br />physician, and that facilitates a speedy recovery. <br />Mr. De Lima commended Ms. Kamaka on the above and suggested that <br />the information be shared in the County online newsletter or through a press <br />release. <br />Chair Robinson asked that Ms. Kamaka also provide information on <br />percentages, e.g., the total County payroll and workers' comp payoffs — what is <br />that percentage basis, then measure and see what the benchmark is. <br />2) Other items of current interest. Ms. Toriano reported on the <br />department's reorganization plans: <br />With her arrival, one of her challenges was to look at what the department <br />is doing and how they're doing it; what, if anything, can be done to improve <br />their efficiencies. Most importantly, this will not be an exercise with just herself. <br />They are taking their division heads and are asking and challenging all of them <br />alike. <br />As five of their staff are retirement eligible and they'll probably be lean in <br />the next five years, working smarter and working better means taking down <br />silos. Instead of being specialized, they need to be more generalized where they <br />can leverage technology. When she discovered that a lot of their written civil <br />service examinations that are being administered are locked in a vault, she <br />challenged the division head to look at that process to bring the department to <br />the 21St century. Happily, the division head is very enthusiastic and excited, and <br />she's looking at a web based recruitment system where people can apply online. <br />By bringing applicants into that data base, they will be able to screen the <br />