What is effective early intervention?

In working with many of our partners in industry, it’s intriguing how often we lose sight of what effective early intervention looks like, when managing injury. I’m going to outline some broad philosophies that will assist in guiding an early intervention program for your workplace.

Whilst my ‘sandpit’ is work-related musculoskeletal injury, I think it’s important to note that these same approaches work well with many non work related and psychological injuries in the workplace.

It might be easier to start with what is not early intervention. Early intervention is not:

• Reporting the injury in the workplace injury database and handing them a workers compensation claim pack.
• Sending a person with a non-traumatic musculoskeletal complaint to an emergency department for follow up care.
• Sending a person with a non-traumatic musculoskeletal complaint immediately to a GP.

Whilst these strategies may help many businesses ‘tick a box’, they will often lead to greater fear and anxiety for the injured worker. The long term effect is a greater likelihood of chronicity developing and a failed return to work outcome.

Effective early intervention for musculoskeletal injury applies several concepts.

Worry about the person and their injury, not whether it ‘really’ happened at work.

We know that people who feel supported both at home and at work, tend to get better quicker. The primary focus of the safety team is on ensuring the injured worker feels supported following their injury. Feeling supported means feeling safe, and improves the likelihood that the worker will work with the workplace to recover from their injury. Strategies that help enhance this support include:

• Regular phone calls or touchpoints with the team member
• Offering to support them by meeting with healthcare providers (with permission and where appropriate).

Use healthcare that encourages a ‘remain at work’ approach.

Navigating how best to manage an injury and communicate with a workplace can be challenging for an injured worker. It can often lead to added stress and anxiety that hampers their recovery, or the prescription of duties that are beyond their physical capacity. A healthcare practitioner should be supporting the injured worker through written or verbal correspondence with your workplace (with the worker’s permission) to help explain the support that the injured worker will need. Further encourage these channels of communication through:

• Offering to attend with the worker at their appointment (if they feel comfortable)
• Invite the healthcare provider for a site tour.

Develop relationships with local physiotherapy and medical providers that understand these core concepts. If you’re looking for a provider, consider reviewing the signatories to the Health Benefits of Good Work.

In providing onsite healthcare and AXIS One Call telehealth services for acute injuries, AXIS deliver information return to work plans to the workplace rapidly following consultations. The same should be expected of any healthcare service you might refer to, and is reasonable for you to ask of an injured worker’s healthcare provider.

Use healthcare that includes effective communication with both the injured person and your workplace.

Navigating how best to manage an injury and communicate with a workplace can be challenging for an injured worker. It can often lead to added stress and anxiety that hampers their recovery, or the prescription of duties that are beyond their physical capacity. A healthcare practitioner should be supporting the injured worker through written or verbal correspondence with your workplace (with the worker’s permission) to help explain the support that the injured worker will need. Further encourage these channels of communication through:

• Offering to attend with the worker at their appointment (if they feel comfortable)
• Invite the healthcare provider for a site tour.

Early Intervention doesn’t end after two days.

Many businesses believe that early intervention begins with an injury, and ends once you’ve booked an initial consultation with the doctor. Whilst this is clean-cut for businesses to track their KPIs, it manifestly underestimates the needs of workers following an injury. In reality, an early intervention system needs to be applied over more realistic periods of time (such as 1-2 weeks following the onset of symptoms). By changing your early intervention mindset to a more extended timeframe, you’re more likely to:

• Arrange appropriate follow up healthcare for the worker through a course of physiotherapy or referring for medical care.
• Arrange regular touchpoints with the worker and their supervisors to track their recovery and return to work.
• Set realistic expectations regarding recovery with the worker.

Early Intervention has a place even when a claim is likely

Ultimately, the goal of any injury management approach should be to reduce the burden of injury to the worker. This will inevitably lead to improvements in claim costs and recovery timeframes. Accessing early intervention, before any claims determination and with a ‘no fault’ approach, ensures that you set the injured worker up with the best chance of speedy recovery, even within a claim process.

When applied, the concepts discussed demonstrate that you are using an evidence-based approach to injury management in your workplace. Feel free to reach out to AXIS for more information.