Rehabilitation - Workplace innovation: A good measure of rehabilitation success

Change is inevitable, especially in our technology-driven and macro-influenced marketplace. And yet it is a widely held belief of insurers that rehabilitation and return-to-work providers are only delivering low levels of innovation. But do stakeholders understand innovation?

Innovation is about the market and the application, as well as the product. It's about the competitiveness of growth, profitability and value creation. While innovation may be risky, it is nowhere near as dangerous as failing to adapt.

Innovation is also a team effort requiring a collaborative and creative approach; all stakeholders need to adopt a creative habit that will involve use of state-of-the-art and not state-of-the-ark technology. People need to re-think, re-learn and re-align RRTW services to suit the environment in which they are being utilised.

According to Peter Fisk's Marketing Genius, published in 2006, innovation can be described as three things: cosmetic —simple modification; contextual — moving to a new market; or conceptual — re-thinking the business model in order to redefine how things happen.

Using these definitions, and in spite of the 'frustrations' cited by insurers at the British Association of Rehabilitation Companies' forum held in June last year, innovative steps have been taken. One cosmetic example could be the development of virtual/telephonic rehabilitation services and the inclusion of services within group risk and liability insurance products. Under a contextual example, you could cite the designing of insurance-based products. And the RRTW industry has even moved towards conceptual with strategic alliances aimed at tackling disjointed delivery and management.

Aligned solutions
However, the provision of RRTW services in the workplace is still predominantly delivered in silos. These silos lack cohesive process, free-flowing easily accessible information and simple communication. This can only result in less efficient, ineffective and more costly service provision for purchasers.

Changing this silo orientation is vital in order to improve outcomes and prove value. Consequently, stakeholders should focus on two tasks. First, target and align solutions by taking into account all aspects of the insurance, protection and liability risk mix. Second, establish RRTW services on a collaborative and multi-disciplinary delivery platform that identifies and overcomes the health, personal/psychological and social/occupational obstacles to recovery and return to work. This, in itself, implies that occupational rehabilitation vocational services can no longer be a separate, second-stage intervention.

In order to deliver a truly effective, aligned solution for the workplace, we need to assess the impact of potential loss at the earliest point of notification; assess the interventions required, identifying the direct and indirect barriers to returning to work; and present the solutions in a transparent, actionable form.

Focus must be shifted to improving performance, productivity and profitability. Change the business model to one that can be measured and valued; a model that is understood by business leaders and owners.

A workplace may appear to be a safe and hygienic environment yet, if we are looking at employees as the greatest asset a business has, it may also be unhealthy if the business has not adopted a human risk assessment and human risk management approach that identifies the impact that the health of employees has on performance, productivity and profitability. An unaligned approach can have widespread and worrying impacts. An aligned solution, however, does require a rethink. It demands effective communication and the full collaboration of all stakeholders.

Optimised productivity
We know — there is market evidence to support the fact — that individual employees receiving rehabilitation hold a strong belief in its ability to help them back to work. To have the most positive effect on performance, to optimise productivity and enhance profitability we need to assess, understand and make the appropriate and proportionate interventions as soon as possible.

Everyone involved in rehabilitation and return-to-work essentially knows what needs to be done — the right thing — but it remains to be seen whether the industry is too reticent to supply the level of innovation required. Courage will be needed for some as innovation will mean including the injured party, from the outset, as a stakeholder, cutting out margins on cost irrelevancies and adopting a focus on human risk assessment. It will also demand prognostic reporting at the front end, forging better relationships through more efficient communications with occupational health services, case management hours being better managed and insurers looking at how we best manage RRTW services across protection and liability risks.

In short, a new workplace RRTW model is needed. Such a model, using evidence-based measurement tools, must be able to present realistic, unbiased cost recovery and timeframe projections that will reduce the cost of absence, presenteeism, ill health retirement and personal injury claims.

The call for innovation is clear, but who is ready to answer that call?

Mark Howard is the director of rehabilitation and return to work, and Brian Whelan is the occupational rehabilitation manager, at Overland Health