Workplace Injury Prevention

What is this Program?

This program is built on an arms length relationship between your organization and Integrated Health Services. This working relationship will allow for you to have a better understanding of your current employee injury/illness risk. We will also gain a better understanding of your organization and employees, which creates a much more specific and efficient environment for managing this risk.

Why Get Involved?

Workplace injuries are extremely costly; Workplace Safety Insurance Board estimates that in 2003 the average single lost time injury/illness in Ontario cost $72,000. This includes direct costs of $14,000 in benefit payments and $58,000 in workplace costs for management time, employee recruiting/retraining, overtime cost and increases in insurance premiums. This program is designed to have a direct impact on these costs.

How Does This Program Work?

The easiest way to reduce the financial burden of workplace injuries is preventing them from occurring. The cornerstones to preventing workplace injuries are:

1. Education: Both management and employees need to have a clear understanding about what the typical mechanisms of injury are and how they can be avoided. Also, early identification of non-traumatic injuries is critical in successful management of these injuries.
2. Job Site Assessments: Assessing the job site to make sure that the work environment provides the lowest possible potential for injuries is paramount.
3. Physical/Functional Demands Analysis: A clear understanding of the physical demands of a job will allow for appropriate prevention steps to be taken.
4. Pre-employment Screening: Once you have chosen a prospective employee, it is critically important to ensure that their capabilities meet the demands of the job they are intended to fill. Ensuring this match will not only potentially reduce the risk of injury, absenteeism and turnover, but will also result in higher job satisfaction.
5. Employee Wellness Programs: The overall health and wellness of your employees plays a major role in their potential for avoiding injury, as well as the rate at which they will recover from injuries. As an individuals overall well being improves, so does their overall job satisfaction.

Each component of this program can be implemented on an individual bases. However, the greatest benefit is realized when they are integrated. Your organization has the option to utilize one of these components to manage your injury/illness risk or you can allow us to combine any necessary components to maximize your cost savings.

What if an employee is injured?

Entry Point Injury Management Program: This component of the program incorporates 24-hour injury management response. Upon one of your employees reporting a non-traumatic work-related injury, your occupational health coordinator should contact the nearest Integrated Health Services Clinic to arrange for the employee to be seen by one of our injury management professionals. Most often these appointments will be the same day and will always be within 24 hours. Once the individual has been assessed, an immediate response will be provided, including a detailed incident report, injury analysis and prognosis. The expected functional capabilities of the worker and a recommended rehabilitation program will also be included. The key to success with this entry point management program is early injury identification and management. Managing injuries while maintaining an appropriate level of work activity is critical.

Program Components

Education: We offer a number of interactive lecture based education seminars, all of which are based on developing physically and emotionally stronger employees. These sessions are customized for both your industry and the demographics of your employee group. A small sample of the available topics includes: Lifting education, Bag Lunch Nutrition, Multitasking, Smoking Cessation and Work Smart.

Job Site Assessment: A comprehensive assessment begins with the examination of the workplace with consideration given to the worker’s physical limitations, the results are incorporated into recommendations for pro active changes to minimize injury potential, as well as make temporary modifications when accommodating an early return to work plan.

Job Re-Design/Modification: It is critically important in the success of rehabilitating an injured worker that all efforts are afforded to ensure that the worker remains at work or returns to work as soon as possible following the injury. Often this means modifying some elements of the job, which they were performing previous to the injury. In some cases, it may mean redesigning the actual job itself or the workplace setting in order to account for the current level of functional abilities the worker possesses. Job modifications or redesigns are typically based on information gathered in a functional demand analysis and compared to information gathered on that specific worker through a functional capacity evaluation.

Physical/Functional Demands Analysis: Provides employers with an in-depth analysis of the functional requirements of a specific job. This analysis provides a definitive description of the functional parameters and physical demands of a particular position. Physical demands analysis is a valuable first step for employers wishing to take a pro-active role in minimizing the costs associated with injuries. Benefits of a functional demand analysis include:

• A definition of minimum and maximum physical demands which are applicable to all employees in that position
• A baseline for pre-work screening values
• Identification of hazards and prevention of future work injury
• Provides standards for applying functional capacity evaluations and assessing return to work abilities
• Provides a valuable basis for work conditioning programs when rehabilitating an injured worker.

Functional Capacity Evaluation: An objective evaluation of functional abilities of an injured worker and how these abilities relate to their defined work tasks. The benefits of functional capacity evaluations include:

• Provision of reliable and objective measurement of ability to perform work-related tasks
• Provides concise, valid and reliable information for basing rehabilitation planning in scheduling appropriate, safe return to work.

Work Conditioning/Hardening: Highly structured goal oriented programs which incorporate physical conditioning, work simulation, and education to improve the injured workers capabilities, strength, and endurance. The goal of these programs is to return to work as soon as possible while ensuring that the worker is safe. These programs could require the worker to perform hardening/conditioning activities for two to eight hours per day.

Pre-employment screening: There are two key aspects to ensuring that the job candidate you are considering is going to be successful. The first is related to whether they have the aptitude and motivation to be successful. The second is whether they are physically capable of performing the job tasks.

We are able to perform a thorough screening assessment that will assist in ensuring that only qualified candidates will be considered for your team.

Standardized test instruments are used to assist in the hiring process along with a clinical interview. Testing procedures may be specific, depending on the nature of the job or they may be general cognitive ability tests. Utilizing such test procedures along with biodata techniques (detailed history of job behaviors that match presently successful employees) will further strengthen the probability that a newly hired employee will be a good fit with your organization.

Along with assisting in the selection of new employees, proper assessment can also identify and help select present employees who are being considered for a promotion. While these procedures are not foolproof, they certainly will increase the probability of your company hiring employees who will make a positive impact.

Secondly, through incorporating a short but comprehensive series of tests specifically tailored to the physical requirements of the particular job position, we are able to give the employer peace of mind in knowing that their prospective employees are capable of performing the job requirements they have been recruited for.

Areas such as future absenteeism, job satisfaction, job turnover, and productivity level are significant areas that are costly to all organization. An initial screening assessment will help mitigate the impact that these factors may have on your company.

Employee Lifestyle/Wellness program: Improving the overall health and wellness of your employees is paramount in maintaining productivity. Lifestyle and wellness programs within a large group can be relatively difficult to administer successfully due to the fact that motivations within individuals vary drastically. The key to having success through this type of program is affording the time to allow each of your individual employees to express their personal motivations with regard to lifestyle and wellness. Once these personal goals and motivations have been identified, an individualized program can be designed which can vary based on the needs of the individual. Typical components of a lifestyle/wellness program would involve, intervention from a lifestyle counsellor who would identify goals and coordinate services appropriate to meet these goals. Service providers may include:

• A dietician who would provide nutritional counselling directed at managing that individual’s diet
• A psychologist in order to help manage issues such as time management, emotional or social concerns
• An exercise consultant to introduce the individual to a daily exercise routine that can occur either in a structured or unstructured environment.

What Does This Program Cost?

We are so confident that you will realize the value of this program that we will perform a general analysis of your organization's work environment for free, with no obligation. This analysis will identify the current risk level for work related injuries and lost time claims. A customized proposal outlining the components of this program that would minimize this risk would also be prepared. As part of this initial analysis we will also provide your employees with injury prevention information.