Discussion on
Rehabilitation Management
and Return-to-Work Programmes

Activities/Obligations

As a responsible and compassionate employer you will want to ensure that injured or unwell workers are given every opportunity to return to full and rewarding employment - whether to their pre-injury duties or modified duties.

To do this you may develop, possibly in consultation with external specialists, a rehabilitation (or "return-to-work") programme which is then adjusted as required as rehabilitation progresses.

There may be records to keep of the rehabilitation goals, the health service providers involved, the programme itself, treatments (such as physiotherapy) received by the worker, and medical certificates issued.

On completion of rehabilitation you will want to have records of the final status of the worker: were they returned to their original duties or modified duties, and is a period of monitoring required.

Using The Software

Whether you use an external rehabilitation manager, or take on some of these duties yourself, the facilities in OSHatWork for managing rehabilitation and return-to-work programmes will be beneficial.

With OSHatWork you can:

• keep records of all aspects of a rehabilitation case (and return-to-work programme), including:
  • the internal case team (if you have one);
  • the external health service providers involved;
  • the rehabilitation goals;
  • the components of the rehabilitation programme, or "return to work" programme, set out for the worker;
  • medical certificates issued;
  • treatments received by the worker; and
  • case notes to whatever level of detail you wish so that you have a history that can subsequently be referred back to (such as if a recurrence of injury occurs);
• get reminders for medical certificate follow-up appointments;
• generate reports such as:
  • all details of one selected rehabilitation case;
  • the return-to-work programme for a particular person (covering restrictions, duties, reviews, etc in each phase of the programme);
  • a summary of all rehabilitation cases for a particular person; and
  • the case notes for one rehabilitation case (or related to a particular incident);
  • all the case notes for a specified period of time (which, for instance, you might use at the start of a new week to review the notes from the previous week);
• manage related incidents and Workers' Compensation Insurance Claims.

More

A complete list of all the OSHatWork Guides is available here.