Unraveling the Workers' Comp Crisis Part II
Saturday, April 8, 2006 | 0
Unraveling the Workers' Comp Crisis Part II
Bionomics a new Injury Prevention Strategy makes the workplace safer-lowers claims costs and lost workdays.
Contrary To Past Opinions
Employees do embrace learning how to control their own well being. The training just has to be done properly. Contrary to past opinions, there does exist a training methodology that is proven to prevent back injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other work related MSD's.
Everyone wins when injuries are prevented. A proactive and substantiated injury prevention training methodology allows all employers to attack the real cause of workplace injuries. Workers compensation costs can now be assertively controlled.
California Program Doomed To Failure
California workers' compensation changes hit the wrong targets. When it is broken, fix it. But fixing the wrong thing will not get results.
A new California law that changes how workplace injuries are evaluated aimed at "saving" businesses in California billions of dollars in workers' compensation insurance costs may help. But will it solve the problem to the degree California businesses demand?
The "new system" changes the factors determining how much money permanently injured workers receive as compensation for their injuries and will result in some workers who are not severely disabled, and still physically able to earn a living, getting less money for their injuries.
It has been criticized by union officials and labor leaders and while many California business owners and executives have expressed their support for the new system, some are taking a different approach - preventing injury, lowering absenteeism and keeping their workers healthy and happy.
A Bright Light
Frank Dominguez, a supervisor for the Los Angeles County Assessor's Office Special Investigators Unit, has spent many years bringing awareness of ergonomics training to the County and the Union that services Los Angeles county workers.
After trying various programs Dominguez heard about Future Industrial Technologies (F.I.T.) and their programs delivered by healthcare professionals who are trained as injury prevention specialists.
The BACKSAFE and SITTINGSAFE programs are based on Bionomics, a field within ergonomics training that includes the adjustment of the physical environment and proper body management. These bionomic programs have been used in diverse industries such as aerospace, municipalities, banks, hospitals, warehouse/trucking firms as well as many small businesses to substantially reduce workplace injuries and worker compensation costs.
Program Results
The results of the program? LA County's worker compensation costs have been cut dramatically and where there were 19 to 20 claims per year, there are now only one or two.
Mission Linen and Uniform Service of Santa Barbara, CA., is another company that has chosen training to reduce worker compensation costs. Mission Linen launders uniforms and linens for restaurants, hospitals and other institutional organizations.
They have 50 locations in five western states, and 2,700 employees, only 800 of whom are delivery drivers. Yet in 2003 they discovered that their delivery drivers where responsible for almost half the reported workplace injuries. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, delivery truck drivers are considered a high incident occupation for back injuries. The Bureau found that sitting in the same position while driving may cause as much trouble as lifting large items once drivers arrive at their next location.
"With our employees spread in small populations all over the West we needed a tailor made workplace safety and ergonomic training program that could be implemented site by site," says Don Bock, Director of Risk Management at Mission Linen. "We have used the FIT program to train our delivery drivers in 15 locations so far and we have yet to experience a back injury where the training has been implemented. It's cut our absenteeism to nothing and our insurance costs are way down."
Back Injuries
Back injuries have been the bane of industry for decades. They are the source of high dollar claims, significant lost workdays, and can instantaneously ruin one's quality of life forever.
Corporate America, despite many attempts, has not been able to significantly reduce the frequency or severity of back injuries to any desired degree. Back injuries (and other sprain/strain injuries) continue to cost Corporate America lost production and billions of dollars of lost profits every year.
There have been many attempts to mitigate this problem. Back belts, ergonomics, and training have been tried. Back belts did not achieve the desired effect, ergonomic interventions have helped mechanize many lift tasks, but does not seem to be the complete answer, and training, well what about training? We have all heard that training people on how to use their bodies correctly does not yield results. Many of us have witnessed this first hand. But how can that be? We can teach a 12 year old girl to do a back flip on a balance beam that is four inches wide and four feet off the ground; we can teach a 4 year old how to swim; we can teach a monkey to jump rope; and even I learned how to eat Chinese food with chopsticks; yet we have not been able to teach willing adults how to lift a box correctly.
The Vested Interests
In the mid 1990's, based on a "study" conducted, it was "pronounced" by a well known medical journal that back training does not work! Does this make sense?
We have already established there is no conflict of purpose-since employer, and employee alike do not want injuries.
We can train athletes of any age to do and repeatedly perform tremendous physical feats, yet responsible workers are being labeled as untrainable?
Unfortunately the study had severe problems in the design of the training protocols. In fact, it was so flawed there was zero chance of reducing injuries. The obvious flaws were:
* There was very little management support.
* Employee buy-in was non-existent.
* And the biggest problem was the training was theory and demonstration only. There was no practical or experiential module for the employees to learn by "doing".
No physical activity can be learned without actually doing that activity. "Back schools" have typically been theory only (video or experts talking about it).
Would you teach your four year old to swim with only a video and then introduce them to the ten foot end of the pool? Then why, in essence, are we doing that to our employees?
Training to reduce costly injuries does work. The return on investment in many cases is phenomenal. When one applies the correct methodology to teaching employees how to perform activities of daily living, employees will eagerly listen and learn even amongst groups with questionable morale.
Successful Formula
The formula for successful injury prevention training must include:
* Care about your employees - Your goal is not to just lower workers' compensation costs when conducting injury prevention training, although that is a given result. Your goal is to help your employees to go home healthy everyday. It will show up in the bottom line very quickly.
* Employees must buy-in - You cannot mandate proper lifting or sitting techniques. It must be a self-determined decision of each employee to apply healthy body movement at home and on the job for their own well being.
* The theory content must be customized for your employees - Job specific training "hits home" and facilitates employee acceptance.
* Practical Module - ALL physical skill training must be drilled to be assimilated. "The value of any training is only as good as it is applied".
* Employee Enlightenment - "Wow, no wonder I have been hurting all these years. This is good stuff". Employees must feel the benefits of the training during the training and know it can make a difference in their lives.
* Commitment - The employees, based on their new knowledge of how to control their own health, must commit to use these skills on AND off the job.
There are other steps to perpetuate a successful back training implementation that will ensure long-term benefits. However, without an initial workshop that impinges upon the employees, designed specifically for them, and taught in a way that changes attitudes and behavior, reinforcement measures will yield little benefit.
The bottom line is that a correct training program does prevent back injuries.
About Future Industrial Technologies
FIT offers workplace safety and ergonomics training programs that show employees how to perform their specific job tasks in a manner that is biomechanically correct, increasing workplace safety and reducing injuries and insurance costs. For more information contact Dennis Downing, info@backsafe.com Tel: (805) 967-2485 Visit the website - www.backsafe.com
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The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of workcompcentral.com, its editors or management.
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