The WHS Healthy Worker Pyramid (Part 4) – Turning Obligation Into Value

Turning Obligation Into Value

Nearly every company has dollars that it spends on “required” occupational health services.  We discussed this in the first post on the WHS Healthy Worker Pyramid SM.  Reactive care is one form of required healthcare with a high cost and small impact.  In many companies, health assessments are similarly inefficient.  Companies require employees to do a mandatory pre-employment physical at the time of hire.  This is used to “check the box” that they completed the assessment.  They also require employees to complete respirator fit testing, audiometry testing, or other similar OSHA mandates.  However, each year they “check the box” to confirm testing.  Therefore, these healthcare dollars are spent every year, and the only value received is a form that gets filed away in a cabinet somewhere. However, there are benefits in turning obligation into value.

Injury Trends, Biometrics and Screening

The pre-employment physical and mandatory occupational health screenings can be incredibly powerful tools.  They can enable employers to learn incredible details about their workplace health conditions.  When combined with workforce-wide biometric assessments, employers can glean invaluable data on their employee’s health.  Employers can also develop informed, intelligent conclusions about their workplace health exposures and deficits, turning obligation into value.  This can only happen if a skilled vendor, such as Work Health Solutions, utilizes these powerful tools. Once the assessments are complete, you can look for trend data and opportunities for interventions.

Turning Obligation into Value

When our Work Health Solutions team completes workforce health assessments, we do more than “check the box.”  Assessments do not need to be pass/fail.  You can use them to:

  • identify early opportunities for interventions
  • highlight workforce trends that require attention
  • trigger proactive workplace interventions that can save employers money
  • prevent recordable illnesses and injuries
  • reduce overall healthcare costs

Added Value Occupational Health

Turning obligation into value allows you to make the most of a required process. Required assessments can add value in other ways, too.  You are spending money to conduct a pre-employment physical with a prospective hire.  Why not get the most bang for the buck?  If the employee is working in a role that has a risk of lifting injuries, address that proactively.  Incorporate a quick ‘safe lifting’ tutorial into the physical, delivered by a healthcare professional with specialized training.  Perhaps the employee is to be working at a desk for 40+ hours per week, including a quick ‘desk ergonomics’ tutorial.  Additionally, find the risks in your workplace, and mitigate them with a preventative approach.  Take the time that your employees are spending with a healthcare provider, and get more value out of each encounter!

Our team of professionals started in positions just like yours.  We were clients who needed better occupational healthcare services.  So, we look at every service from your perspective and then identify ways to add value to each service.  Contact us today, and find out more about how we can make your occupational healthcare dollars work for you.

dfrieders

dfrieders

Chief Solutions Officer

About Us

Work Health Solutions is dedicated to preserving a safe work environment and improving existing programs and care for local, regional and national organizations.

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Dr. Glen Cheng

A physician-attorney with a dedication to healthcare innovation, informatics, and digital health.

  • Currently spearheads employee health protection and promotion within the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System.
  • Trained in residency at Harvard, achieving board certification as a physician; also a licensed patent attorney with experience as FDA regulatory counsel.
  • Co-founded Acceleromics, a consulting firm providing clinical and regulatory guidance to digital health startups.

Erin Davis

 Chief Clinical Officer at Work Health Solutions, certified in Adult-Gerontology (AGNP-C) and Athletic Training (ATC).

  • Oversees clinical operations and ensures high clinical standards across the company’s national field staff.
  • Former Manager of Clinic Operations and Occupational Health Nurse Practitioner at Stanford University Occupational Health Center (SUOHC).
  • Specialized in treating occupational injuries and illnesses, and provided medical surveillance and travel medicine consults at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Lab.
  • Dedicated to sports and occupational injury treatment and prevention.
  • Assistant Clinical Faculty at UCSF, mentoring students in clinical rotations within the Adult Gerontology and Occupational and Environmental Health Program.
  • Holds leadership roles as Treasurer and President Elect of the California El Camino Real Association of Occupational Health Nurses (CECRAOHN), affiliated with the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN).

Dr. Robert Goldsmith

Founder and President of NBS Healthcare Group, with a focus on innovation in healthcare consulting.

  • Previous role as Executive Director for Employee Health at Novartis Services, Inc., leading health services and clinical support.
  • Instrumental in creating an integrated healthcare system at Novartis.
  • Former private practice in internal medicine in Stamford, Connecticut, and Medical Director consultant for GTE Corporation.
  • Transitioned to GE as a Global Medical Director in 2000.
  • Holds a medical degree from Albert Einstein College, an MPH from the University of Connecticut, and completed training at Greenwich Hospital and Yale-New Haven Medical Center.
  • Assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the Vagelos School of Medicine, Columbia University.
  • Serves as a team physician for high school athletes in Stamford.
  • Published works on occupational health risks, primary prevention, and exercise-induced asthma.