 
Integrated
Health
The changing nature of the workplace in a
competitive global market makes investing in
healthy human capital even more critical to a
company's productivity. For example, new types
of employment and new occupational settings are
being created as a result of advances in science
and technology, an aging and more racially
diverse workforce, and the shift from an
industrial economy to a knowledge- and
service-based workforce. Our economy relies more
and more upon a workforce whose skills are
information-based, and require workplace
competencies that embrace innovation, management
ability, industry knowledge and
professional/technical skill sets.
In this knowledge economy, demanding
productivity and quality requirements as well as
increased workloads, are placing increased
pressure on workers' time and causing a
stressful imbalance in their lives. Overworked,
high stress employees with poor lifestyle habits
can lead to increased rates of absenteeism,
turnover and lost productivity.
In addition to these pressing occupational
health issues, employers are now facing a fifth
consecutive year of substantial cost hikes in
health care costs. Premiums for
employer-sponsored coverage jumped an average of
13.9% this year, according to the Kaiser Family
Foundation's survey of 2,808 employers
nationwide. That brings the overall average cost
of family coverage to $9,068 and the cost of
single coverage to $3,576 per year.
As an occupational health provider, we are
keenly aware of how injury/illness impacts an
organization's sustainability, as well as an
individual's ability to be productive and
thrive. To address these issues, a new paradigm
in occupational and non-occupational health
management has emerged. This initiative, known
as Integrated Health, Safety and Productivity
Management (IHSPM), is focused upon establishing
a new framework for public health in which
workers, their families and their employers
share like responsibility for the protection,
preservation and improvement of health.
WorkCare has fully embraced and adopted IHSPM as
part of its mission to offer employers practical
solutions in managing productivity and benefit
costs.
The new paradigm is aimed at getting employers
to concentrate their efforts on improving the
health and well being of employees as a whole,
not as individual cases. This integrated
approach is aimed at preventing work-related
illness, injury, and disability and promoting
healthy living and lifestyles to reduce and
prevent the debilitating effects of chronic
disease.
Integrated health was recently studied and
discussed at a conference by NIOSH. The
conference, "Steps to a Healthier
Workforce," tapped the expertise of
national health leaders to explore this emerging
model. WorkCare participated in this conference
and presented a paper, "Bridging the Gap
Between Occupational and Non-occupational
Medicine Practices to Improve Employee
Health."
About The Emerging IHSPM Model
Regardless of whether individual injury and
illness is caused by work or personal life
factors, the effect is the same: ailing personal
health cuts work and home life productivity,
reduces income and impairs quality of life. The
burden of ill health has a rippling effect,
impacting not only the injured/ill person, but
also dependent family members.
Until now, most workplace health promotion
programs and workplace safety and health
programs have functioned independently, without
collaborative interactions. Health promotion
programs have generally focused on the
individual's personal and lifestyle risk
factors, e.g. lack of physical activity, poor
nutrition and tobacco use.
To bridge this disconnect, a synergistic
approach is needed that uses the worksite as a
portal to promote health, safety and well-being
across the work life continuum. WorkCare has
made measurable inroads in this area by
reshaping on-site employer EHS departments to
serve as the primary facilitator and integrator
of both occupational and non-occupational
employee injuries and illnesses, as detailed in
the NIOSH presentation.
We believe that IHSMP will continue to provide
significant investments in human capital,
generating measurable outcomes in workplace
health and productivity This trend in
occupational health management is best explained
in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental
Medicine's article, "Investing in Healthy
Human Capital". The article asserts that:
"The employers who
increase their investment in healthy human
capital now will emerge tomorrow as the
companies leading the gains in U.S.
productivity."
In keeping with our
goal to be the premier provider of integrated
occupational-medicine services, WorkCare has
expanded its portfolio of services to include
IHSPM services that can help employers invest in
human capital to optimize productivity gains. Click
here to have our experts in integrated
health contact you.
Absence
Management
WorkCare's absence
management program is an advocacy-based
program that combines the power of nurse
care coordination with the technological
resources of a proprietary, web-enabled
software system. This system, known as WorkLinkÔ,
provides an employee centric, real time
communication tool between all players supporting
the employees' return to work goal.
The services are
usually delivered by an on-site clinical
team, which includes nurses/health advocates,
consulting medical physicians, health &
fitness coaches, and support from qualified
occupational health providers. This team
works in a cross functional approach to
ensure that employees receive the entire
continuum of care-from onset of initial
injury/illness to full recovery. These services
are carried out in a manner consistent with
the client's health and safety goals, and
in alignment with best practice, disability
duration and treatment guidelines established
by the ACOEM, Presley Reed and other industry
standards. Click
here to have our experts in absence
management contact you.
Nurse Care Coordinated
Support to Minimize Absences
A dedicated team
of experienced, credentialed nurses provides
a range of services to remove obstacles
which prevent or delay the employee's return
to work. Their early intervention and case
management helps employers more effectively
manage absences. The nurses typically intervene
within the first three days of a health
issue, providing a unique window of opportunity
for setting expectations, educating, and
directing care.
This proactive health
model incorporates early interventions and
advocacy to produce markedly better results
than typically found when using the traditional
reactive model. Studies have shown that
arly intervention positively impacts medical
outcomes, return to work, cost savings,
and employee satisfaction.
Our absence management
program is supported by a robust system
of clinical expertise and technological
resources that includes:
- Clinically focused,
early intervention treatment plans deployed
by seasoned healthcare and risk management
professionals
- Web-enabled, state
of the art proprietary technology
- Relationship-based
care coordination in which nurses/healthcare
professionals work closely with employees,
employers, and providers to ensure the use
of evidence-based standards of care
- Integration of
medical care management services for all
benefits: workers compensation, group
health, STD, LTD, and FMLA
WorkLink--Proprietary,
State-of-the-Art Technology
Nurse case managers utilize WorkLink, a
proprietary web-based software application that
tracks risk factors, treatment plans, return to
work progress, attendance trends, and case
histories. This secure, paperless confidential
software environment enables nurse case managers
to provide optimal medical care management.
WorkLink also has the capability to track and
assist acute episodes to manage chronic
conditions during the entire employment. It
tracks all activities throughout the cycle of
the employees' health-related absences and
events. Most important is that WorkLink allows
employers a "real-time" connection to
view employees' work status.
Reporting Features
This model promotes communication and allows
management of employee leaves and absences,
regardless of causation and enables web-based
entry of absences for referral and reporting.
The software generates a number of reports,
including case management effectiveness, and
profiles of employee health and absence
utilization trends. The reporting feature
provides employers with a sophisticated analysis
that shows a clear picture of the program's
effect on lost time, employee health trends,
frequency and severity of cases and duration of
absence. The system allows both internal and
external users to obtain real time information
through pre-defined /assigned security levels.
The system is also able to generate customized
real time reports, which provide return to work
status, as well as providing estimated cost
savings.
Click
here if you want additional information
on this service.
Health Advocate
WorkCare provides health advocates to
support on-site, integrated programs. Health
advocates are professional nurses,
wellness/health coaches or disability
specialists. Their role is to provide employees
with a single source of communication for all
health issues. The health advocate works closely
with employees to cultivate and earn
trust--building a relationship that can be
tapped into to guide appropriate healthcare
treatment to an injured/ill employee.
Our program has demonstrated that the presence
of on-site health advocates is a key success
factor for employees' buy-in and use of the
absence management program, as well as
participating in health and wellness activities.
On-site nurses know and understand the corporate
culture and its employees, and have learned to
cultivate trust and acceptance within employee
groups. This approach fosters cooperation and
participation by employees in the absence
management program.
Our health advocates provide the following
services:
- Help employees and
their families navigate the healthcare
system
- Coach employees on
important questions to ask their doctor
- Answers questions
and provide health education
- Direct employees to
preventative health and wellness resources
- Facilitate
employers' transitional duty program for
occupational and non-occupational lost time
Health Coaching
The health advocate promotes healthy living and
lifestyle changes by providing the support and
guidance needed to facilitate employees' through
the "stages of behavior change." This
coaching is designed to help employees integrate
and maintain improvements in personal health and
work behaviors into the work environment and
prevent further injury related problems. The
health advocate provides personal health
coaching to help employees begin or stay on
target with their wellness goals, which may
include:
- Smoking cessation
- Blood Pressure
management
- Weight Loss and
Healthy Diet
- Exercise
Case Study
This model is currently deployed in San
Bernardino, the largest county in the contiguous
United States. The county has an employee
workforce of more than 20,000 full-and part-time
employees serving a geographical are of
more than 20,000 square miles. Keeping this
workforce productive and healthy is a critical
priority for the county---as the employees
are the lifeblood of the system.
WorkCare has helped the county fulfill its
mission of service by keeping employees
healthy, reducing lost time for county employees
enrolled in the HMO Plan by nearly 1,700
working days, according to a yearlong independent
study conducted by a major California health
plan. The study results showed that WorkCare's
health advocacy program played a key role
in saving the County of San Bernardino 1,698
work days in 2,806 cases, reducing lost
time by 10 percent compared to other employer
cases in the study.
Click
here if you want additional information
on this service.
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