Articles tagged under ‘Early intervention’

Articles 1 - 96 of 96

• Meet LOLA — the AI assistant helping to enhance rehabilitation outcomes

  In an exciting development for workplace rehabilitation, one Australian provider has successfully deployed artificial intelligence to improve RTW outcomes for injured workers.

  ---

• Webinar recording — Value-based care in action: Leveraging digital programs for tangible outcomes in workers' compensation.

  The webinar explores how digital health solutions can improve workers' compensation outcomes through evidence-based care delivery and proper evaluation frameworks.

  ---

• A tale of 2 outcomes — How early intervention changes everything

  A chef’s sliding doors experience shows how addressing the full spectrum of the impact of injury — physical, psychological and professional — creates the conditions for successful RTW.

  ---

• Why modern office work is not as safe as we think

  A literature and industry review is challenging the widespread belief that computer-based office work is inherently safe.

  ---

• From doctor's office to work-ready — The tech revolution in RTW

  An award-winning tech solution improves RTW by transforming the traditionally paper-based workers' compensation system into an efficient electronic process that connects all stakeholders in real time.

  ---

• Talk early, talk often — How conversations can transform a RTW journey

  When difficult workplace conversations don't happen, recovery stalls. Here's how better dialogue could have changed one teacher's story.

  ---

• Webinar recording — Optimising case management: RTWSA's evolving strategies for effective return to work

  Effective case management is a key element for successful recovery and RTW. In this webinar, Michael Francis, CEO of ReturnToWorkSA, discusses what lies behind the excellent results produced by ReturnToWorkSA's case management system.

  ---

• Webinar recording — The future of recovery: Integrating AI to deliver evidence-based early intervention

  Libby Roberts explores how generative AI could revolutionise allied health by enabling scalable, evidence-based early intervention and recovery support.

  ---

• Webinar recording — The Orebro: The power of early psychosocial screening and management to ensure a smooth recovery and return to work and life.

  This webinar, presented by Dr. Cassandra Zaina, discusses the importance and implementation of the Örebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire (ÖMPQ) in early psychosocial screening for workers' compensation cases.

  ---

• Navigating whiplash online — does an e-resource help insurers and clinicians?

  This is a summary of a presentation by Professor Rebbeck and Dr Carvalho-e-Silva at the Research to Real World for Compensable Injury Symposium in June 2024 about a tool to improve outcomes for people with whiplash-associated disorders.

  ---

• Webinar recording: Manufacturing Healthy Minds

  Hear about the Manufacturing Healthy Minds Program implemented at BOC Gases, a mental health program by workers, for workers.

  ---

• Early intervention in workers’ comp — an overview

  A report gives a snapshot of current early intervention practices, experiences and beliefs in workers’ compensation in Australia and what’s improving recovery and RTW outcomes for injured workers.

  ---

• Steering Healthy Minds — a peer support program to prevent mental illness in the transport sector

  An industry peer support program to prevent mental injury is driving change in the transport industry.

  ---

• Heading mental health injury claims off at the pass

  Tips for some proactive strategies organisations can use to address mental health concerns before they escalate and become a workers’ comp claim.

  ---

• How do Work Health and Safety psychosocial regulations line up with RTW laws? And how do employers comply with both?

  What should employers do to make sure they're complying with both Work Health and Safety psychosocial regulations and laws about return to work?

  ---

• Collaboration to prevent and manage mental injury claims — a roundup from the 3rd It Pays to Care symposium

  Sharon Stratford reports from the third It Pays to Care symposium

  ---

• Webinar recording — Translating Employer Insights

  Megan Buick, General Manager of the Strategic Partnerships and Engagement Group at Comcare talks about the challenges employers experience in supporting work participation and provides resources to help meet their needs.

  ---

• Webinar recording — Navigating RTW with ease: CGU's Early Intervention Program for SMEs explained

  Learn about CGU's partnership with Workfocus Australia to develop an early intervention program to support small to medium enterprise clients with their RTW obligations.

  ---

• Screening for risk — a ‘holy grail’ in workers' compensation claims

  In a talk recorded for the It Pays to Care Biopsychosocial Symposium, Associate Professor Ross Isles suggests some important guidelines for better results in managing workers' compensation claims. These guidelines focus on using risk screening processes to benefit injured workers.

  ---

• Is your organisation ready for regulatory change? — the ‘what’ of psychosocial risk assessment and control

  This is Part 1 of a 2-part article that summarises a presentation by Professor Angela Martin at the 2022 Workplace Mental Health Symposium. It looks at the ‘what’ about how organisations can prevent harm to people's mental health at work’.

  ---

• Managing psychosocial triage and intervention — challenges and considerations

  In a recorded presentation for It Pays to Care Symposium on early psychosocial screening and matched care, Associate Professor Ross Iles highlights key challenges and considerations when it comes to managing and improving return-to-work processes.

  ---

• A WISE adaptation of a success story — Australia Post’s Early Matched Care Program (Part 2)

  Melanie Ianssen, Head of Rehabilitation at Australia Post, describes how that organisation adapted the WISE study to improve RTW outcomes for their injured workers. What were the results?

  ---

• A WISE adaptation of a success story — Australia Post’s Early Matched Care Program (Part 1)

  Melanie Ianssen, Head of Rehabilitation at Australia Post, describes how that organisation adapted the WISE study to improve RTW outcomes for their injured workers.

  ---

• Threading the needle (Part 2) — tips for managing RTW for injured or ill workers

  Safework Australia has a guide helps supervisors in small and medium businesses tread the tricky path of managing RTW for ill or injured workers.

  ---

• Threading the needle (Part 1) — tips for managing RTW for injured or ill workers

  Safework Australia's new guide helps supervisors in small and medium businesses tread the tricky path of managing RTW for ill or injured workers.

  ---

• Words, language and collaboration matter in returning to ‘good work’

  Four experts discuss the idea of ‘good work’ and how collaboration can achieve better outcomes for injured workers.

  ---

• Webinar recording — Every recovery needs a plan

  John McMahon, Director of Science at Navigator Group, discusses their Navigator Support Program which reduces cost and duration of claims by addressing psychosocial barriers to recovery.

  ---

• IRRI-sistable (Part 2) — tipping the scales towards fewer workplace mental health injuries

  In Part 1 we introduced IRRI — WorkCover Queensland’s Injury Risk Reduction Initiatives. In this follow up article we look specifically at some of the projects that target workplace mental health, and what we can learn from them.

  ---

• IRRI-sistable (Part 1) — WorkCover Queensland’s Injury Risk Reduction Initiatives improve outcomes for all

  RTW practices are a team sport. WorkCover Queensland’s Injury Risk Reduction Initiatives show what can be done when injury scheme players work collaboratively to reduce the barriers to recovery and RTW.

  ---

• Webinar recording — It pays to care: from policy to practice

  Dr Mary Wyatt introduces the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine's recently-launched policy on work injury scheme design and explores some practical approaches to improve how our schemes operate.

  ---

• Webinar recording - WorkWell: Preventing mental injury and promoting mental health

  In this webinar, Jennifer Fry, Director of WorkWell at WorkSafe Victoria, shares free tools and resources to help you build a positive and mentally healthy workplace.

  ---

• Webinar recording: Recovery Blueprint: helping case managers help injured workers

  The Recovery Blueprint project is a partnership between Monash University and WorkCover Queensland with the aim of introducing evidence-based risk identification to workers compensation case management in Queensland.

  ---

• Webinar recording: Implementing early screening to identify and manage at risk workers to prevent unnecessary work disability: Lessons from the WISE study

  This webinar outlines the key learnings from the WISE study and the core components that made a major difference.

  ---

• The fire and rescue perspective on PTSD

  Andrew McGarity of Fire and Rescue NSW speaks with Dr Mary Wyatt via video link about an initiative to foster early reporting and better management of PTSD and other mental health disorders in a high-pressure industry.

  ---

• Webinar recording: Case management - Early identification of people at high risk for work disability

  An occupational physician's guide to identifying and supporting high-risk individuals and common barriers to return to work.

  ---

• Too tough, too scared, too busy

  A quarter of construction workers don’t report injuries. Why - and what are the consequences?

  ---

• New insights: best practice risk factor identification for delayed return to work

  A best practice statement sheds light on how – and when – we should collect, analyse and act on information predicting RTW struggles ahead. But there’s still a lot to learn…

  ---

• Common-sense claims processes are on target

  In some jurisdictions, claim lodgement processes have become more user friendly and proactive about early intervention. What are the benefits?

  ---

• Webinar recording: Deal with it early, deal with it right

  The value of effective injury reporting systems

  ---

• PEMA results at work

  Workplace examples illustrate how employers use (and misuse) the results of pre-employment medical assessments

  ---

• Webinar recording: Mediation v Litigation - Two part series

  Dispute resolution options in RTW and Industrial cases including a case study

  ---

• PEMAs ain't PEMAs

  There's no "one size fits all" pre-employment medical assessment: individual role demands and safety requirements determine the appropriate type of PEMA for the job.

  ---

• Intro to PEMAs - pre-employment medical assessments

  What is a PEMA? What can - and can't - be achieved with this earliest of early interventions?

  ---

• Webinar recording: Implementing a 24/7 injury reporting line

  This webinar discusses the values and outcomes of 24/7 injury reporting lines

  ---

• How-to guide: Calling psychological injury claimants

  Delaying contact with workers who’ve claimed for psychological injury can delay return to work. This article outlines why, how and when to make *that* call.

  ---

• Two-thirds of psychological claimants report no workplace contact

  New research shows Australian employers delay and even avoid contact with workers who make psychological injury claims, and finds an association with poor outcomes for return to work.

  ---

• Webinar recording: Effective physical rehab

  The injured worker needs and deserves it.

  ---

• Can you ‘teach’ workers to be more emotionally resilient?

  You may know someone like this at work: optimistic and resilient, they appear to bounce through challenges drawing on an internal strength that helps them work through problems they encounter at work.

  ---

• Bus Wellness Guides 3: Ideas and Resources

  ---

• Webinar recording: Physiotherapists and return to work

  This panel discussion explores physiotherapy strategic approaches to improve return to work and the worker's health outcomes.

  ---

• Bus Wellness Guide 2: A guide for managers

  Managers and supervisors can have an enormous impact on employee health, wellness and safety. They monitor how well policies promote performance and productivity.

  ---

• Bus Wellness Guide 1: advice for operators and leaders

  ---

• Psychological Cases: developing a psychologically healthy workplace

  The workplace is a social environment. For many, this is one of the most enjoyable aspects of their job. For others, depending on the workplace, the negative impacts on their psychology can be enormous.

  ---

• Speaking Up 3: Staff speaking up

  As an employee, it's often seen as easier to keep quiet, but the reality is that you need to speak up.

  ---

• Speaking Up 2: Employers enabling open communication

  Many employees tend to be wary of communicating openly in the workplace, so what can employers do to help them to open up?

  ---

• Prehabilitation: improving the results of surgery

  Prehabilitation is an approach to aid people recover from surgery and increase the likelihood of a good outcome.

  ---

• Lifestyle Factors: Nutrition & RTW

  Absenteeism due to employee health costs Australian businesses around $7 billion annually and poor nutrition plays a large part in it.

  ---

• Lifestyle Factors and RTW: Fitness

  Fitness lowers the risk of injury and aids recovery, but 71% of the Australian working population aren't getting enough exercise.

  ---

• Medical treatment: the importance of early access

  Delayed access to medical treatment means delayed recovery.

  ---

• Psychological Cases: prevention is better than the cure

  The workplace is a social environment. For many, this is one of the most enjoyable aspects of their job. For others, depending on the workplace, the negative impacts on their psychology can be enormous.

  ---

• Orebro: the questionnaire you need to know about

  The Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire (or OMPQ) used to be known as the Acute Back Pain Screening Questionnaire.

  ---

• Workplace Nonchalance: who cares?

  Nonchalant employees are not unhappy. They're not disgruntled. They’re people who show up day after day and go through the motions.

  ---

• Workplace Incivility: where are your manners?

  Incivility is being rude, discourteous and showing a lack of regard for others. The behaviour harms the target, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It may also occur in the cyberspace, such as not replying to email or sending terse emails.

  ---

• Wellness: a whole of industry approach

  While the health and wellness concerns of the bus industry are similar to other industries across the transport area, their methodology may provide a useful template to the wider workplace community.

  ---

• Learned helplessness in RTW

  'Learned helplessness' is the idea that some people who experience repeated setbacks will eventually develop a passive response to problems. How can you help and understand injured workers who don't try and help themselves?

  ---

• Banishing Burnout: Strategies for a Constructive Engagement with Work

  Dr Michael Leiter, a professor at the Centre for Organisational Research and Development at Acadia University, offers strategies for enabling employees to constructively engage at work and avoid burnout.

  ---

• Mental Health: developing an action plan for your workplace - part 1

  An estimated one in five employees will be impacted by a mental health condition at any one time in Australia.

  ---

• Health and Wellness in the Workplace: how to promote it

  Every business wants to increase productivity and make money. Many businesses are, however, unaware of the benefits to their 'bottom line' finances, of investing in staff well-being.

  ---

• Exploring Injury Reporting Systems

  Early reporting can have a huge impact on RTW outcomes, so the system used should be well-suited to the purpose.

  ---

• Webinar Recording: Workplace conflict - Early action at the coal face

  Conflict is best dealt with early, and by those involved.

  ---

• Role Summary: Senior Management

  Senior management provides leadership for the team and sets the tone for the rest of the organisation.

  ---

• Role Summary: Supervisors

  While the employee has the greatest influence over return to work outcomes, supervisor input is not far behind. Supervisors can make an enormous difference to the success of an employee’s return to work.

  ---

• Webinar Recording: Engaging others early - The art of influence in return to work

  Building influence without authority and how it can support personal injury management professionals.

  ---

• Using telephonic case management for assessment and triage

  Telephonic methods can be used to assess the clinical and work participation needs of people with common health problems.

  ---

• Recorded Webinar: Improving RTW Culture in the Workplace

  This webinar will explore the initiatives that ISS Facility Services' National Injury Assist Team have undertaken since their creation in October 2010 to help improve the RTW culture throughout their organisation.

  ---

• The lowdown on lifting

  Dr Jos Verbeek talks about a review of research on training employees to lift to prevent back problems.

  ---

• Stress and emotional resilience

  Ever wondered what RTW and sabre-toothed tigers have in common? Or why some people bounce back quicker than others from stressful situations?

  ---

• What does research say about Early Intervention?

  In response to a subscriber's question, we find that the early bird gets results.

  ---

• Tired of workplace health wannabes?

  Every workplace has health champions and health underdogs. Motivating the latter can be a real challenge...

  ---

• Musculoskeletal hazards: Why ticking the box gets a red cross

  Assessing risk isn't about ticks and crosses in a box. So why do Australian workplaces tend to rely on manual handling checklists?

  ---

• Guide to injury reporting systems

  Improvements to injury reporting systems are one of the most cost effective ways to improve return to work outcomes.

  ---

• Managing disaster compensation

  Richard Green, injury and claims manager with the CFA after Black Saturday, knows what to expect from disaster-exposed workers, and how to help them through.

  ---

• Nice one, Mercedes!

  Missing out on early intervention puts an end to this cleaner's night job, but doesn't stop her from retraining for a satisfying new career.

  ---

• Stigma and mental illness

  What is stigma? What are some consequences of stigma? How might stigma manifest in the workplace? And what can you do about it?

  ---

• Dealing with diabetes

  Diabetes is Australia's fastest growing chronic disease and affects 7.5 per cent of the population. How can you accommodate diabetic workers? And can employers assist with prevention?

  ---

• Common causes of workplace pain

  Understanding musculoskeletal pain will increase productivity and health.

  ---

• Just how painful is injury reporting?

  Knowing when injury reports should be made and how they should be dealt with can reduce the pain and strain of the process...

  ---

• Resolving long-term claims

  We profile a success story in identifying and dismantling non-medical barriers to RTW at Concord Hospital, NSW

  ---

• How to tip the balance AWAY from claims for strains and sprains

  Practical tips for reducing musculoskeletal claims

  ---

• What are the ingredients for success in RTW?

  Getting the right mix is never easy but hearing how other people have succeeded in return to work helps. A WorkSafe officer offers her advice.

  ---

• Is work good for you? Professor Kim Burton explains the UK's changing answer

  In this interview with UK expert we learn that modern vocational rehabilitation is not about delivering an expensive service.

  ---

• The Stress Series - Part 4

  Managing a stress claim

  ---

• Staying off work - when is it unnecessary and why does it matter?

  Ensuring those who don't need to be away from work get back as soon as possible is best for all.

  ---

• The importance of early return to productive and full time duties

  A worker has several months off work after experiencing acute back pain. Her eventual return to work was not successful, with frequent aggravation of symptoms resulting in inconsistent working hours and no return to her pre-injury duties after two years.

  ---

• Ignoring a problem will only make it worse.

  A cleaner works through increasing pain levels for more than two years before reporting her difficulties. By this time she is unable to perform her pre-injury duties and is forced into a longer term rehabilitation program.

  ---

• Employers can sort out liability issues simply by seeking sensible medical advice

  An admin officer developed acute back pain after several weeks of 'niggling' soreness. Questioning the work relatedness of the back pain doubled the costs.

Archived Articles 1 - 2 of 2

• Harnessing the power of information

  Sharing RTW information with workers creates connections and ensures consistency across diverse workplaces. This case study, from Scenic Rim Regional Council in QLD, shows you how to engage workers from induction onwards.

  ---

• Positive steps towards a culture of collaboration in the UK

  Returning to work is good for your health, and in the UK there is a collective voice that agrees.

Research 1 - 13 of 13

• What impact do RTW coordinators have on the outcomes of injured or ill workers?

  What makes RTW coordinators effective in getting injured and ill workers back to work, and back sooner?

  ---

• Checking the benefits of workplace mental health screening

  A study suggests that workplace mental health screening programs on their own may not be very effective in improving employee mental health.

  ---

• Workplace bullying and sick leave — a 2-way street

  Bullying increases the risk of workers getting sick and taking time off from work, both in the short term and the long term.

  ---

• Targeted prevention of long-term sickness absence

  Some prevention strategies go the distance, reducing long term sickness absence even five years post-intervention. Others have short term benefits only. Does mental health complicate effectiveness?

  ---

• Comcare has success with innovative early intervention program

  Phone triage is an effective gateway to early intervention, securing cost and recovery benefits via a broad-spectrum approach, with support services accessible to workers regardless of work causation.

  ---

• NSW success story of early intervention

  Research from NSW shows that early intervention saves money and improves health when it's carefully managed and overseen. Are employers and workers' compensation authorities ready to meet the challenges of implementation in the real world?

  ---

• Orebro in the real world

  A risk assessment tool that ordinary, under-pressure case managers can use.

  ---

• How to get bang for buck from vocational rehabilitation

  Multi-component vocational rehabilitation programs that intervene early and improve coordination between workers, family members, employers and health care service providers yield better outcomes for all stakeholders.

  ---

• Mining the resources that prevent chronic LBP

  Good mental health, social support at work and home, and job satisfaction protect against persistent low back pain.

  ---

• Less LBP pain and more function with early RTW

  Health practitioners and employers take note: with appropriate support and appropriate duties, workers with LBP have less pain and better function when there’s a quick – even immediate – return to work.

  ---

• One LBP intervention does not fit all

  Is there such a thing as too much early intervention for workers with lower back injuries?

  ---

• An intervention for low back pain that works

  Evidence-based! Cost-effective! Proactive! Popular! You will love this new workplace intervention for high-risk workers with low back pain.

  ---

• Research short: First contact

  Early contact with injured workers is good for RTW, right? Well, that depends! It's not so much what you do as how you do it.