Return-to-Work (RTW) is a process that helps employees to transition back to work after an illness, injury, or extended absence. Occupational Health (OH) case managers play a crucial role in helping employees in this process, specifically when it pertains to illness or injury. By developing an accurate RTW plan and engaging key stakeholders in the RTW process, OH case managers help organizations significantly reduce the length of absence, while lowering the risk of long-term employee disability, thereby helping to keep costs down.
According to a recent report, injury-related absenteeism costs US employers approximately $530 billion annually in lost productivity [1]. Yet, by intervening early and engaging key stakeholders in the RTW process, organizations can significantly reduce the length of absence, while lowering the risk of long-term disability, thereby helping to keep costs down.
Developing an accurate RTW plan promotes both the employee’s recovery and the organization’s productivity by minimizing prolonged absences and reducing the financial impact of disability. However, many RTW programs face challenges, such as communication gaps between stakeholders, unclear timelines, and difficulty in managing complex cases involving multiple health conditions. Implementing best practices can help overcome these hurdles, especially when supported by OH software solutions that streamline workflows, ensure compliance with medical disability guidelines, and improve coordination between HR, case managers, and healthcare providers.
This blog will take you through:
- The importance of early intervention to prevent prolonged absences.
- The role of evidence-based guidelines in creating safe and effective RTW plans.
- Leveraging technology to streamline decision-making and improve communication across teams.
Key Considerations to Optimize Return to Work Outcomes
To optimize an employee’s return to their pre-injury status, occupational health case managers should focus their efforts on a few critical return-to-work program principles. They include:
- Prioritize Early Intervention: Early intervention is essential for engaging injured employees and removing potential barriers to work reintegration. For example, early intervention helps prevent the development of mental obstacles, such as the belief that full recovery is required before returning to work, which can complicate the RTW process. Timely action improves recovery outcomes and enhances the chances of a successful RTW. Studies indicate that employees who are away for six months or more have only a 20% chance of returning, with this probability plummeting to just 2% after 11 months [2]. For organizations, implementing early intervention strategies helps maintain a stable workforce and reduces costs associated with lengthy absences and long-term disability.
- Leverage Evidence-Based Guidelines: In the OH system, individuals are entitled to evidence-based care supported by public health data. Integrating evidence-based disability guidelines into RTW plans provides research-backed timelines based on injury type and comorbidities. This helps OH case managers create tailored RTW programs that accommodate the individual’s functional limitations and support a prompt return to work, facilitating faster recovery. Additionally, these guidelines enable case managers to advocate effectively against overly cautious healthcare professionals who may impede timely and safe RTW discussions.
However, OH clinics frequently prioritize employee throughput as a key performance indicator, which can make it time-consuming to analyze medical conditions against numerous available studies. Integrating evidence-based guidelines into OH software solutions streamlines this process, reducing the time and effort required to access and apply these guidelines for informed decision-making.
Access to evidence-based data not only supports RTW compliance, but also enhances recovery outcomes by setting expectations. A recent study emphasizes that when patients have clear recovery expectations, adherence to treatment plans improves, leading to faster recovery times [3]. Proactively discussing key questions such as “What are the employee’s recovery goals and timelines?” and “Are they ready to talk with their employer about modified duty options?” is essential to ensure employees understand the recovery expectations. Knowing the steps of the path to recovery helps employees manage stress and uncertainty, ultimately leading to better health outcomes and a smoother RTW.
- Harnessing Data for Effective Decision-Making: More than 1 million biomedical peer-reviewed journal articles are published each year, with this number growing by 5-10% annually [4]. This surge in research makes it increasingly difficult for OH case managers and clinicians to keep pace with the latest evidence-based recommendations. The challenge extends beyond reading these articles; OH case managers must also dedicate time to assess how this evolving body of research impacts their specific cases or employees. To effectively harness this wealth of information, a data-driven approach is essential but accurately storing this information in an easy to access place to assess against an employee’s case can be difficult.
- Stakeholder Communication & Collaboration: The earlier and more frequently case managers engage with workers, their healthcare professionals, and supervisors regarding RTW goals and planning, the more positive the RTW outcomes tend to be. Studies highlight that proactive communication significantly improves RTW success rates by ensuring alignment on recovery expectations and modifications [5]. Incorporating OH software solutions can enhance this engagement by streamlining communication and data sharing while maintaining strict health confidentiality. These tools facilitate real-time updates and coordination among all stakeholders, leading to a more cohesive approach to managing RTW plans and improving overall outcomes.
- Functional Demands Analysis: Functional demands analysis is an essential exercise for employers, offering valuable insights into the specific requirements of various roles and how they align with workers’ functional capabilities. This analysis helps identify opportunities for modified work that accommodate an employee’s limitations while facilitating their RTW. However, as job tasks and roles evolve, these assessments must be continuously updated to maintain their accuracy.
Research by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) underscores the importance of regularly revising functional demands analyses to reflect current job requirements and support effective RTW planning [6]. OH Software solutions can significantly aid this process by providing tools to manage and update these analyses efficiently, ensuring that they remain relevant and supportive of both employee needs and organizational goals.
The Benefits of Leveraging OH Software to Support RTW Programs
Utilizing OH software to operationalize the RTW best practices mentioned above can be very effective in helping case managers, while improving their access to real-time data and insights to inform decision making around return to work. Some of the distinct advantages that software affords for effective case management includes:
- Streamlined Case Management Workflows: Integrated workflows in OH software automate the numerous manual processes involved in case management, such as scheduling follow-ups, tracking recovery milestones, and flagging cases for review. With dedicated case management features, OH software enables case managers to create and monitor tailored RTW plans that align with the specific needs and restrictions documented during an individual’s recovery window. This allows for a structured RTW approach, where the business can progressively increase the worker’s functions and tasks based on real-time health data.
Software enables OH case managers to efficiently manage their RTW tasks, actions, and responsibilities through auto-generated checklists specific to case types. Additionally, OH software solutions typically include built-in reporting tools that automatically generate and schedule status reports, helping case managers quickly identify and address any open or incomplete tasks that are critical for RTW outcomes.
- Integrated Disability Duration Guidelines: By integrating evidence-based guidelines into its case management workflow, OH software provides access to industry-standard absence data and medical duration benchmarks directly in the case record. This information helps case managers gauge average RTW timelines for various conditions or injuries. By comparing the treating physician’s prognosis with these best practice guidelines, OH software supports the development of realistic and targeted RTW plans, reducing unnecessary absences and costs, and identifying when a secondary medical opinion might be necessary.
Discover how Cority’s Occupational Health Solution Helps Managers Address Critical Challenges
Improved Communication and Coordination across Teams: OH software enhances collaboration between OH, HR, and management teams by centralizing information. It supports the maintenance of clear communication channels and provides authorized access to case files if applicable, aligning everyone on an employee’s recovery progress, goals, functional limitations and RTW timeline.
TIP: If your organization is considering an OH software solution, look for a solution that offers management referral tools, which allows supervisors to confidentially raise concerns about a worker’s health and receive guidance on how to support the employee effectively. Evidence-based guidelines are integrated into these referral messages to help supervisors manage their employees during recovery.
OH software solutions with robust mobile applications can greatly enhance communication between case managers and frontline employees or supervisors. These applications provide a user-friendly interface for employees to easily share information, submit documentation, provide updates, and schedule appointments with their worksite’s OH clinic or case management team. This streamlined approach ensures effective communication and efficient management of RTW processes, while maintaining confidentiality and facilitating real-time updates.
Advanced Analytics and Dashboards: Gaining holistic oversight of RTW program effectiveness, identifying priorities, and ensuring effective resource allocation can be challenging. Organizations can leverage OH software’s reporting and dashboard capabilities to consolidate and review case management data at a ‘global’ level, analyze data for trends, identify insights, and help OH leaders demonstrate tangible ROI from case management efforts. Integrated evidence-based guidelines are helpful tools to benchmark an organization’s RTW metrics to industry standards, helping improve future case predictions.
Additionally, built-in business intelligence tools with advanced analytics capabilities can help organizations highlight areas for process improvement, track the effectiveness of interventions, and monitor compliance with regulatory requirements. Configurable dashboards offer real-time visibility into key performance indicators, enabling OH leaders to make data-driven decisions swiftly. By utilizing these insights, organizations can optimize their case management strategies, reduce costs, and improve overall employee health outcomes.
Final Thoughts
Effective return to work strategies are critical for both employees and organizations, significantly impacting recovery outcomes and cost management. Occupational health software transforms these strategies by integrating evidence-based guidelines into streamlined workflows, enhancing communication and coordination, and leveraging advanced analytics to optimize RTW timelines. By providing timely access to essential data and automating key processes, OH software helps case managers optimize their approach, ultimately leading to more successful RTW outcomes and improved organizational efficiency.
Don’t miss our webinar on October 10, 2024, Best Practices for Case Management: Driving Results Through Data-Driven Conversations, where Cority will be joined by MDGuidelines’ Kerri Wizner to discuss best practices for effective case management, and how organizations can leverage software to optimize the case management efforts.
Sources:
[1] Poor Health Costs US Employers $530 Billion, Integrated Benefits Institute, 2018. https://news.ibiweb.org/poor-health-costs-us-employers-530-billion-and-1-4-billion-work-days-of-absence-and-impaired-performance
[2] American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine. (n.d.). Preventing needless work disability by helping people stay employed: A report from the Stay-at-Work & Return-to-Work Committee. https://www.worksafebc.com/en/resources/health-care-providers/guides/preventing-needless-work-disability-by-helping-people-stay-employed?lang=en&direct
[3] Engaging Patients to Improve Quality of Care: A Systematic Review. https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-018-0784-z
[4] Scientific literature: Information overload. Retrieved from: https://www.nature.com/articles/nj7612-457a
[5] Effectiveness of Workplace Interventions in Return-to-Work. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5820404/
[6] Return to Work. https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/psychosocial/rtw/rtw_jobdemands.html
