Articles

Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service’s prescription for injury management success

Lauren Finestone

Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (GCHHS) has enhanced its RTW outcomes and reduced its workers' comp premiums through innovative strategies, leadership engagement and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (GCHHS) has significantly enhanced its return to work (RTW) outcomes and reduced its workers' compensation premiums. It has done this by consistently applying the basic RTW practices that will be familiar to many work injury schemes, a commitment to continuous improvement and some innovative initiatives.

This article looks at 4 of those initiatives that have been driving GCHHS’s success.

Leadership engagement — ‘Our leaders know our name’

At the heart of GCHHS' success is a strong emphasis on leadership engagement and personal contact in the organisation. 

The executive leadership team maintains regular touchpoints across all divisions, from medicine and surgery to mental health and allied services. 

The leaders — from the board level down to divisional leaders — know who their Human Resources, Work Health and Safety people and RTW Coordinators are and actively engage with them around safety and rehabilitation.

Board meetings include discussions on health, safety and injury management, fostering a 2-way dialogue between leadership and operational teams.

This top-down buy-in and involvement has been instrumental in driving change. It has been crucial for:

  • taking a holistic approach to health, safety and workforce management
  • supporting innovative approaches to reduce insurance premiums
  • ensuring that injury management remains a top priority throughout the organisation
  • creating a culture where safety and employee well-being are recognised as top priorities and integral to the organisation's overall success, and
  • securing necessary resources and maintaining momentum. 
Data-driven decision making — The 'warts and all' presentation

Education and transparency have been key drivers of success. One of GCHHS's most effective strategies has been its implementation of what they call the 'warts and all' presentation. Each senior leader and their division is presented with an annual report that quantifies their contribution to the organisation’s workers' compensation premium. 

As well as emphasising the benefits of a swift RTW — earlier return leads to better recovery outcomes — the presentation highlights the financial advantages for health services. Premium reductions, like the $2.5 million saved, are reinvested directly into hospital resources.

The presentation delivers a stark reality check to senior leadership. By quantifying work-related injuries in terms of lost days and divisional contribution to GCHHS premiums, it transforms abstract statistics into tangible divisional operational impacts. While the presentation focuses on direct costs and compensation premiums, it also hints at a multitude of hidden, secondary costs. 

This approach of giving division-specific data personalises the impact of workplace injuries and RTW outcomes for each leader. These numbers can be jarring. Seeing ‘17,000 days lost’ projected on a screen makes the impact impossible to ignore and gets the attention of even the most sceptical leaders. 

The ‘warts and all’ approach has proven to be a highly effective strategy in driving organisational change as it’s led to a greater understanding of the importance of injury prevention, the need for proper resourcing and effective RTW strategies.

Strategic resourcing in rehabilitation

Rising premiums at least had a silver lining: a redesign of the rehabilitation model. GCHHS introduced specialised divisionally aligned rehab coordinators, each dedicated to different injury management streams — workers' compensation, income protection and health management cases. 

This strategic resourcing approach enabled it to respond more effectively to existing injuries while also working to prevent future ones. And it paid off swiftly. In the first year, despite not being fully staffed for the whole period, the additional 3 full-time employees drove premium reductions of nearly $700,000. Building on that success, the second financial year has seen operational savings rise above $2 million, which GCHHS has attributed largely to this more balanced resourcing approach.

Central to this success was the ability to quantify and highlight divisional performance. This was achieved through meticulous data management, including customisation of the WorkCover portal and regular data cleansing to account for divisional realignments. While labour-intensive, this background work has been fundamental in achieving results by ensuring the right staffing levels to manage the workload effectively.

Early notification and accountability — The ‘traffic light system’

Another standout initiative is the early notification system for workplace injuries. This 'report card' approach uses a traffic light system to evaluate injury management. Initially featuring 4 criteria with simple tick or cross indicators as well as key aspects of the injury, it has now evolved into an 8-point scorecard.

The system assesses various factors — like timely injury reporting, adherence to proper notification procedures and a rapid response by rehabilitation coordinators to implement early intervention strategies.

When these scorecards are shared with the executive and senior divisional leaders, confronted with red crosses instead of green ticks, they quickly adjust their practices to improve their performance. 

This simple but effective tool has produced measurable improvements across the entire health service. It shows the impact that a red cross can have on operational behaviour and how targeted, data-driven strategies can drive substantial organisational change in injury management and RTW practices.

Outcomes and impact

The results of these initiatives have been significant. Over the past 3 years, GCHHS has reduced its average first RTW time by nearly 20 days. In financial terms, the organisation has seen operational savings of over $2 million in the current financial year. These financial savings allow funds to be redirected to patient care.

More importantly, these strategies have led to better outcomes for injured workers. By engaging injured employees immediately and proposing suitable duties before medical consultations, GCHHS is creating a more supportive recovery journey. 

The takeaways from the GCHHS approach

GCHHS has achieved these results by taking these steps:

•    Engaging leadership at all levels — from the board to frontline managers — and making health and safety a priority.
•    Using data to quantify the impact of injuries and presenting this information in a way that resonates with leaders.
•    Acting quickly when injuries occur and holding leaders accountable for their response.
•    Investing in expertise to ensure there are subject matter experts in key injury management roles.
•    Regularly reviewing and refining its strategies to drive ongoing improvements.