Our workplace injury early intervention program (EIP) facilitates early detection of injuries and immediate intervention for effective injury management. We provide early assessment, treatment and management advice for all workplace pain and injury presentations. Workplace assessment to identify early return to work options for partially incapacitated injured workers is prioritised to address employer’s concerns about doctor’s certification practices. The philosophy of the service is to provide prompt and effective treatment, liaison with treating medical practitioners regarding specific certification and suitable work duties, in addition to familiarisation and liaison with employers. This approach allows immediate identification and allocation of suitable duties, and implementation of a negotiated management plan that minimises treatment and recovery time. It also helps workers to remain at work while recovering from their injuries. It also drives subsequent workplace injury prevention strategies. Management support and involvement of all workplace stakeholders is key. Our injury prevention and management strategies can help achieve reductions in claims, premiums and time loss injuries, for a happier, healthy and productive workforce.
Call us on 08 83311557 to find out how we can help your workplace thrive!
How does this help your company and workforce?
Benefits of our workplace injury early intervention program may include:
- Reduced ‘unfit for work’ certification – injured workers remain at work while recovering.
- Reduced time-loss injuries
- Reduced work injury claims
- Reduced average cost per claim
- Reduced median days absent for work injury
- Reduced progression of injury to a chronic state
- Reduced worker’s compensation insurance premiums
- Improved diagnostic accuracy, treatment effectiveness, use of healthcare resources and patient satisfaction
- Improved motivation to remain at work or return to work while recovering from injury
- Improved workplace culture and job satisfaction
Our team of expert physiotherapists will travel to your workplace for an initial assessment and early injury management intervention, anywhere in Australia (COVID-19 restrictions may apply). Early assessment, treatment and management advice allows immediate identification and allocation of suitable duties and implementation of a negotiated management plan. We contact the treating medical practitioner and provide advice regarding specific certification and suitable work duties, taking into account any restrictions imposed by pain or injury.
We can also provide a regular on-site physiotherapy service for as little as 2 hours at a time, on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis, anywhere in Australia (COVID-19 restrictions may apply). We have the knowledge, experience, systems of management and network of highly trained Physiotherapists to meet and respond to your injury management needs.
Physiotherapists are the experts in assessment, diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries. Physiotherapists can allow you to reap the benefits of a sports injury management approach to your workplace injuries! Excellent clinical reasoning ability, refined assessment skills and expert knowledge of physiology, tissue healing and biomechanics enable physiotherapists to provide a broad range of services to assist workers and employers in both injury prevention and injury management. Physiotherapists can apply their knowledge surrounding workplace practice, environment and history together with their understanding of lifestyle, and injury and illness to help assess your employees and identify their work capacity and suitable duties throughout recovery.
Our past experience includes implementation of an early intervention injury management model at the General Motors Holden car manufacturing plant in Elizabeth, of one of South Australia’s largest employers. This program delivered a 25% decrease in lost work time, where advanced injury management systems and on-site health services had already existed for 20+ years.
The effectiveness of early intervention programs has been observed and documented in a range of industries and settings in recent years as outlined below:
- The introduction of a workplace-based early intervention injury prevention program involving onsite physiotherapy, demonstrated positive effects on compensation outcomes for work-related musculoskeletal disorders in poultry meat processing workers (Donovan et al, 2017). This study demonstrated (1) an 18 % reduction in claims, (2) a significant reduction [$831] in average costs per claim and (3) 37% reduction in median days absent.
- Another recent study investigated the effectiveness of an integrated workplace-based program to reduce musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs) and the impact of those injuries in healthcare workers (Badii et al, 2006). Time-loss MSIs increased at the intervention site during the intervention year. However, the program returned injured employees back to work in a shorter time and, compared with average historical data, reduced compensation costs and healthcare costs associated with time-loss MSIs during the first year. The findings that MSI-associated time-loss and compensation costs were significantly lower during the program illustrates the effectiveness of this program and demonstrates that increased reporting of MSIs need not be associated with increased claims costs.
- A 2013 study involving on-site physical therapy-led triage services for professional orchestral musicians found that on-site health services may facilitate better injury management by providing immediate and specific health advice (Chan et al. 2013).
- There is emerging evidence of the effectiveness of extended scope physiotherapy services on patient satisfaction and the outcome of soft tissue injuries in hospital emergency departments (Kilner et al., 2011). Desmeules et al. (2012) found that that physiotherapists provide equal or better usual care in comparison to physicians in terms of diagnostic accuracy, treatment effectiveness, use of healthcare resources, economic costs and patient satisfaction
Please phone the Work Health Solutions team on 08 8331 1557 or email us at jayne@aimphysio.on.net to find out how we can help reduce your workplace injury costs and discuss our competitive rates!
Download << Early Intervention Program Information sheet >>.