Following Company Regulations

onsite drug testing

Your business was either founded by you or by someone who built it with a lot of safety mechanisms in place to protect both you and your employees. Following company regulations is important in not only maintaining legal protection, but also in maintaining an environment in which it is easy and satisfying to work. If your employees cannot predict what kind of job they will have day to day or month to month, if they cannot have certain expectations about the repetitiveness of the company in which they work, they are going to lose it and find that they are unable to comply with company regulations.

Of course, there are those who do not possess or who do not choose to have as many internal muscles holding them back when they are tempted to lash out or be flakey or responsible when things become tough.

By having a prescribed set of rules and seeing to it that everyone is following them, any company in the world can help maintain order and predictability for all of their employees. But for those who abuse illicit substances anyway, regardless of the consequences, you may desire to have consequences in place, ready for these actions. Synthetic drug testing from companies like Mediscreen provides a safe, fast, easy way to screening all of your employees. Mediscreen provides drug and alcohol screening for businesses all over Australia, and we do it onsite, that is to say that we come to your business, rather than all of your employees coming to ours. For more information, check out the rest of our website.

Workplace drug testing is safe, easy, and accurate with Mediscreen. Making sure that your company policies are being appropriately followed is very important. You must be able to hold to these policies if your business is to maintain its balance in the ever changing world around it. You never know what will happen to the marketplace, but with proper internal structure, there can be room for flexibility without too much leeway. Mediscreen is accredited by NATA to carry out onsite urine drug testing.

This article has been taken from : http://www.mediscreen.net.au/following-company-regulations/

Expect Great Things

drug test Perth

Expect great things in your life. Expect all of the goodness and ferociousness and fearlessness and confidence that you should have in your life. Expect high quality drug and alcohol testing to make a statement in your ability correctly assess your workers. Expect your business to thrive and flourish, and expect to do well in business continually. When you grow, your business itself grows, for it is primarily endowed with your strength and with your spirit.

Onsite drug testing and alcohol testing companies all over Australia will attempt to bring alcohol testing and drug screening to your door. That is only part of the equation, though. Mediscreen is a part of the growing number of companies which provide high standard customer service, while also delivering quality drug and alcohol testing services to all of the sections, departments, and worksites of your company, no matter what size it is. We are flexible and we bring this flexibility and tenacity to the jobsite.

Drug screening is part of these great expectations. Why is this the case? In order to use our testing services, you must have a long term view of your company. You must see that your business will be in operation in the next fifty years, and you must then decide how much and how badly you wish to achieve that forward looking goal. We all grow up and separate ourselves from the old waste and the old lives which with which we no longer associate. Drug and alcohol testing is part of this new growth and this new opportunity with which to test our skills and our newfound knowledge. Mediscreen is NATA accredited for onsite drug testing, and we specialize in this new, powerful strength with which you can infuse your business and become a leader in your community.

Onsite drug and alcohol testing is a subsection of the drug screening industry, and Mediscreen brings you the best and the brightest of this power. Mediscreen is AS4308 accredited by NATA. When you and your company are looking for safety first, growth second, then Mediscreen is the right drug screening business for you. We are part of your great expectations.

This article has been taken from : http://www.mediscreen.net.au/expect-great-things/

Drug Abuse in Aviation

Aviation lends itself to getting away with a lot, especially if you travel for your job. Abuse is less noticed, and substance abuse can easily be covered up, since not everyone with whom you work will be able to discern unnatural or inconsistent behavior in you. In aviation, you can get away with a lot more illicit behavior if you travel for your career. However, this will not always be the case, since you can easily have drug and alcohol testing leveraged at you. Employee drug and alcohol screening is especially important to implement in high hazard industries such as aviation, because in many high hazard industries, drug and alcohol testing is a requirement. Mediscreen simply makes the whole process so much easier by offering onsite drug and alcohol screening. Onsite testing means that you are tested and evaluated at your place of work, and then any suspicious samples are taken by to the lab for further examination. It is really as simple as that.

There are other dangers to drug abuse at high altitudes than just the effects which can occur at normal altitudes. Your body may be affected in specific ways, such as respiratory function, ability to maintain balance and coordination in a moving aircraft, and the ability to hold down food and liquids. Also, your sense of coordination and reality may be really affected by mixing higher concentrations of oxygen with your drug of choice. There are many ways of going about experiencing this process. None of them are safe, and anyone who is in control of passengers’ safety will easily find themselves putting many lives in danger from this practice. This does not just include the pilot, but anyone who works on or in or outside of the aircraft. Regular maintenance and testing are part of passenger safety, too.

Mediscreen provides onsite drug and alcohol testing for companies all over Australia. We love our job, and we love what we are able to do for the environment. Our testing procedures are cleaner, simpler, more cost effective, and more time efficient. We believe in getting it right the first time.

Alcohol testing: Safety in Travel

Many companies are franchises or they have multiple offices all over a country or area. When this is the case, executives must travel from location to location, seeing to matters of importance and making sure that managers and subordinates are doing their jobs in the best possible way. Also, there is a need to update information and modus operandi in order to stay competitive with other businesses which are in the same industry…or even in the same area.

When your executives and other levels of employees are traveling from place to place, it is important to make sure that there is a certain amount of consistency in what they encounter. A business is built by reputation and it is necessary to keep each location operating by a certain standard. Workplace drug testing helps to keep the employees and the level of quality of their work at a minimum standard which you can set. It is the ability of someone in your position to take the clay and mold it a little. Each branch of the company does not have to be cookie cutter identical to all the rest, but it certainly helps to have a minimum standard of quality. When you are implementing drug alcohol testing for your business, remember to take into account differences in areas, populations, number of employees, and potentially dangerous neighborhoods, all of which may contribute to how often you decide to have each franchise tested. While the work itself may be the same, the surrounding neighborhoods and therefore the surrounding influences are very different.

When any of your employees are traveling, they should find a safe haven in other branches of your company. They should find something recognizable. Workplace drug testing helps to eliminate the potential for disparity between employees in different areas. It helps to maintain consistency, and consistency is one thing which many growing businesses have difficulty in maintaining.

Onsite drug and alcohol screening is not just reserved for questionable individuals. It is a standard practice, used by many companies to make sure that their employees are safe and that their assets are protected. 

Onsite Drug & Alcohol Testing: Time or Money

You will either spend time or money when you are interacting with the consumer market or investing in the business market. Time will save you money, and money will save you time. It is rare that you will find a situation in which both money and time can be saved. Onsite drug & alcohol testing services will save you time, because you will not be spending it on scheduling laboratory drug testing for your employees and your employees will not have to take time off of work or take personal time of their own in order to travel to the laboratory to become tested. Laboratory testing will cost your employees either way, and can cost both you and your employees money if they have to take time off of work to get this done.


Mediscreen saves you money by providing onsite drug and alcohol screening services to all businesses all over Australia. Whether you are a small business with just a few employees or a large company with hundreds of employees, they will need to be tested, and Mediscreen offers competitive pricing on our services when we come to your jobsite. Mediscreen is focused on providing the best drug screening services at the best prices and at the best location: your own workplace. This means that you do not have to leave the office or the jobsite in order to be tested, you can save money on the operation because you are not paying for time away from work and you are not paying laboratory expenses, and it is convenient and effective for your employees.


If you have to spend time or money on something, which would you choose? You can save money by spending more time on a project, but your time is valuable, especially if you have a family waiting at home for you or friends with whom you spend your free time. You can save time by spending more money, but this cuts into company savings and emergency funds, and can deprive your employees of expected income for a week, income which provides for their homes and food and families, too. With Mediscreen, you have both time and money at your disposal, not to mention effectively tested employees working for you.

The High Cost of Not Doing Workplace Alcohol and Drug Testing

There is no arguing the fact that workplace drug testing can be controversial as people raise privacy issues. Should the employer be able to figure out that an employee used cannabis 2 days ago? Is it fair to force people to submit to an alcohol or drug test when they prefer not to? Clearly, more and more employers and government agencies are instituting random drug test programs because they believe the answer to these questions is “yes”. Even more court cases are being settled in favour of employers enforcing testing of employees for substance use to ensure workplace safety, and state and territory laws are becoming more supportive of testing for a variety of employee groups. For employers, the real issue is the high cost associated with not doing alcohol drug testing in the workplace.

Recently it was reported in the Lancet medical journal that Australia and New Zealand populations have the highest rate of cannabis usage at 10 to 15 percent and the highest usage rate of other drugs like speed and crystal methamphetamine at 2.8 percent. Professor Wayne Hall with the University of Queensland’s Centre for Clinical Research was quoted as saying, “Among the most common harms were drug dependence, overdose deaths, accidents, violence, HIV-AIDS and other blood borne infections.

Testing Costs Are Low Compared to Costs of Not Testing

Each one of these harms and a lot of others can directly impact an employer’s bottom line. Many discussions about workplace drug testing focus on managing the direct costs like the cost of testing equipment or the labour cost of program administration. However, the low cost of today’s effective drug testing equipment and certified laboratory testing can be dwarfed by the cost of not testing and not knowing the status of substance use and abuse in the workplace.

• Estimates gleaned from Australian and USA studies indicate alcohol may contribute to approximately 5 percent of work related fatalities

• When sued in court, an employer without an alcohol and drug testing program can be found in breach of the general duty, required by law to provide a safe workplace, if someone is injured due to the use of alcohol or drugs by co-workers

• Worker turnover leads to high tangible and intangible costs associated with employee replacement that include the costs of recruiting and training, and the loss of the exiting employee’s skills, training, knowledge, expertise; empirical data indicates that lost productivity accounts for two-thirds of total turnover costs

• Cost of reduced job performance by substance abuser requiring co-workers to either re-do work or fill in for employee using alcohol or drugs

• Cost of lost productivity through job withdrawal behaviours like taking long lunch breaks, sneaking extra breaks, spending time on non work related activities and sleeping on the job

A 2008 report on the costs of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use identified quantifiable tangible costs for households, businesses and the government. The following statistics for 2004/2005 were reported for businesses:

Costs of lower productivity in the workplace due to alcohol consumption is estimated to be at least $3.6 billion due to alcohol and $1.6 billion due to illicit drugs

• Costs of absenteeism as those who drink alcohol are 1.2 times more likely to be absent from work compared to those who don’t drink

• Employees are 3 times more likely to be injured leading to increased workers’ compensation and disability claims

• Health insurance and workers’ compensation costs soar due to increased medical and hospital expenses of $192 million related to drugs and alcohol

• Vehicle accidents lead to workplace disruption costs plus associated legal, vehicle and insurance expenses costing businesses $576 million

• Increased workplace criminal activity like theft costing over $1.4 billion

The total annual tangible costs to business associated with alcohol misuse were over $5.6 billion. The costs for illicit drug abuse were $3.2 billion. However, it is impossible to measure the full costs of alcohol and drug use in the workplace. For example, how do you measure the real cost of an employee trying to work under the additional stress of completing job duties with a co-worker who is under the influence of a substance?

The cost of employee alcohol and illicit substance use in the workplace runs into the billions of dollars each year. The cost of not instituting alcohol and drug testing is simply too expensive to forego. Mediscreen at offers high quality flexible Onsite drug and alcohol screening services that can help you contain the potentially high cost of employee substance abuse.

Lessons Learned from the Roadside Test

Today Mediscreen considers some of the lessons learned from roadside testing and how certain facets of the roadside testing programmes that exist in Australia have been successfully adapted to an onsite screening regime.

All the states of Australia utilise roadside testing. Why? Because the vastness of the continent is connected by an extensive and complex network of highways and roads that are the main means of transport for recreation, business, organisations and families and communities.

Roads and vehicular use are synonymous with life in Australia and equates with the old adage have vehicle will travel.

Drug Testing Australia relies so heavily on vehicular use for most practical aspects of life and we do so in a manner that is far more intensive than many other countries. Compare travel distances in Australia as compared to the United Kingdom or Europe and it is evident that the distances and conditions here are uniquely extreme for a westernised nation.

While freight transport in the form of trains picks up a degree of the transport load, the use of heavy transport vehicles is still a major feature of industry and product transport nationally and state wide.

Random Testing

Random Workplace Drug Testing is the practice of screening vehicle drivers for indication of alcohol or drugs. This involves breathalysing with a hand held unit or the saliva testing of the drivers. The Police force in Australia performs “random roadside saliva testing to detect drivers travelling while affected by illicit drugs.” Testing aims to ensure road safety and reduce road accidents and death. It also effectively acts as a deterrent, the 2010 ROSITA study states.

According to the Federal Government’s full report on Drugs and Driving, safety approaches over the last 3 decades have reduced road trauma statistics. It has also contributed to debate on the use of illegal drugs behind the wheel and says that there is “increasing evidence that pharmaceutical drugs and illicit drugs impair driving ability and are thus a safety concern. Cannabis, methamphetamines and ecstasy appear to be the drugs of most concern from a road safety perspective… some pharmaceutical drugs – benzodiazepines in particular, are implicated in a considerable proportion of road accidents and trauma.”

Saliva Testing

Saliva testing is the preferred method of drug test used by Police. It is easy, quick, efficient and less invasive and allows for less disruption to the Police operations and less disruption to those being tested. It allows for a greater throughput in terms of testing ratios and numbers and is therefore a comparatively cost effective mode of bulk testing.

There is no doubt drug urine tests also have their place and are exceedingly important as an option in certain contexts and each have distinct advantages.

However, for a cost effective and efficient mode of screening that can detect recent use, saliva screening may be ideal.

Onsite Screening Programmes

The efficiency and adaptability factors of saliva tests, as well as the recent use detection factor, translate well to a workplace screening context. This form of Drug Alcohol Testing actually dispels with the possibility of identification of drugs through urinalysis, where the window of detection is longer and therefore usage may not be specific to recency of use. A positive urine sample may well indicate use, but the use may be in the distant past and this can cause issues for both employees who demand rights to privacy in relation to recreational use of substances on a weekend.

If your organisation requires Onsite Drug And Alcohol Screening, consider the options available through Mediscreen and discuss the possibility of a saliva screening programme.