Best Practices in Return to Work

The Institute for Work & Health (IWH) is a research organization funded primarily by the Ontario Workplace Safety & Insurance Board; it is af?liated with four universities. The IWH focuses on injury prevention and management, and recently completed a comprehensive review of published, peer-reviewed evidence related to return to work (RTW).
 
Beginning with 4,124 papers, the list was reduced to 24 studies meeting the selection and quality criteria. The studies reported effects on duration of disability, costs for wage replacement and healthcare, and worker quality-of-life.

BEST PRACTICE FINDINGS:

    • To reduce duration and cost: (i) Early contact with the employee; (ii) Work accommodation; (iii) Contact between health professionals and the workplace.
    • To reduce duration: (i) Arrange ergonomic assessments; (ii) Identify a point-person to coordinate RTW; (iii) Educate supervisors and managers about ergonomics and safety; (iv) Implement programs jointly supported by labour and management.
  • To improve quality-of-life: (i) Focus on psychosocial dimensions, by encouraging goodwill and mutual con?dence in the RTW process; (ii) Communicate clearly, adequately, and consistently, avoiding specialized health-care and insurance terminology.
Five other factors in?uence RTW: prompt injury reporting, health care system capacity and information-sharing, physical job tasks, the organization’s working conditions, and broader psychosocial dimensions. Advisors can help employers better manage absence and disability by ensuring their clients’ policies and practices, and insurer programs and processes, ‘make the grade’.

From: Institute of Work & Health, InFocus 38a, Fall 2004. www.ihw.on.ca.

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