Occupational Health – www.specialist.physio

What is Occupational Health Physiotherapy?

Occupational Health Physiotherapy is part of the wider field of work health and safety, including injury prevention and management, health promotion, worker wellbeing and supporting sustainable work across life’s stages. Occupational Health Physiotherapists (OHPs) use their skills, knowledge and expertise to improve individual, organisational and community health, safety and wellbeing.

OHPs are involved in drafting Codes of Practice and work health and safety guidelines, as well as consultation with government agencies regarding changes to regulations and laws related to the health and safety of the working population. They prepare submissions to inquiries and government bodies and promote physiotherapy for health promotion, prevention and injury and illness management. OHPs work at all levels of industry from assisting individuals and small businesses to large corporations. OHPs may have an advisory and/or treatment role onsite as well as in private clinics or as independent consultants. The expertise of OHPs is valued by policy makers, employers, equipment suppliers, designers, and many other agencies.

OHPs use a risk management approach to injury and illness prevention and management, in line with work health and safety laws and codes of practice. OHP services incorporate the biopsychosocial model and are aligned with current evidence-based practice, including the Health Benefits of Good Work Consensus Statement.

Who can they help?

OHPs work with employers, employees, health and safety professionals, engineers, designers, academics, government agencies, insurers and others in a wide range of organisations to optimise working environments, to minimise the risk of work-related injury and illness and maintain healthy work across life’s stages. This includes optimising worker performance and job satisfaction.

Jobs and work environments are constantly changing and the principles of worker wellbeing and good work design are becoming more recognised as important factors to the community. OHPs use a participatory approach to identify, assess and manage workplace hazards and risks and promote a positive safety culture. This involves collaboration and consultation with a range of workplace stakeholders.

Specialist Occupational Health Physiotherapy

Specialist occupational health physiotherapists have attained formal recognition of their expertise via Fellowship of the Australian College of Physiotherapists. This is the highest level of clinical qualification available in Australia.

Specialist occupational health physiotherapists are often involved in providing second opinions or specialist care for people with these more complex occupational health conditions or workplace health issues. This can work in a variety of different ways. They may provide:

Shared-care (collaboration with the doctor and local/treating physiotherapist or other health professional, employer and other workplace stakeholders)
Specialist care (a course of treatment delivered by the specialist physiotherapist, potentially as part of a multidisciplinary approach. Common for more complex cases)
Broader recommendations for management or workplace safety (eg. around risk, diagnosis, recovery expectations and referral to other medical or healthcare specialists).
Guidance on methods of monitoring and evaluating workplace interventions and measuring the outcomes
Injury prevention strategies which may include task analysis and work redesign incorporating ergonomic principles (individual and environmental factors)
Injury management, stay at work and return to work guidance
Assistance in developing and maintaining a positive health and safety culture across organisations.
Health promotion and wellness strategies
Strategies to optimise sustainable work across life’s stages.

Every person has their story

Jenny's Story

A call centre undertook a computer software upgrade and workers could no longer use keyboard shortcuts to enter information, now relying on their mouse to navigate several additional screens.

Jenny reported discomfort in her mousing arm, radiating from her wrist up to the side of her neck. A Specialist OHP assessed Jenny and the new tasks of staff, as five other workers also reported the onset of similar discomfort – all related to increased repetition, frequency and duration of mouse use.

The OHP Specialist consulted with workers, supervisors and management to make modifications to work practices – alternative equipment, additional short breaks, simple workstation exercises and tasks variation – that allowed the workers to remain at work without increasing their risk of injury. Changes to update the software system and reduce mouse dependent tasks were recommended.

Follow-up and review of the changes identified no new reports of worker discomfort, and a reduction of reported discomfort in the symptomatic workers, including Jenny. The next version of the software further reduced mouse dependency and the subsequent risk of similar problems recurring in the future.

Business Case Study

A logistics company recently experienced increased online demand, resulting in increased workforce demand. There followed a rise in workplace injuries, lost work time, workers compensation claims and employment of replacement casual workers. Staff were reassigned to assist the high volume of online orders, manage critical functions in areas where they had not formerly operated and to supervise casuals unskilled in the tasks. Worker weekly hours increased with overtime as workload demand increased.

Despite increased income, the company experienced high costs due to increased workers compensation premiums, increased overtime and casual rates payments. Worker morale plummeted.

A Specialist OHP was consulted and initiated the following actions:

better matching of worker volume/capacity and proposed redesign/automation,
set up a system to collaboratively troubleshoot problematic work areas and tasks,
established a near miss reporting register for early identification of potential risks,
ensured that current tasks were safe in terms of physical and cognitive requirements, work pace, breaks, skills, etc,
provided an onsite physiotherapy clinic as an early intervention treatment, free to workers,
provided injury management and return to work guidance, and
recommended additional staff training to improve skills across a variety of tasks.

After five months of Specialist OHP intervention:

1. The number of workers remaining off work had improved by 60%
2. There were no new worker compensation claims
3. Sick leave had reduced
4. Morale of both workers and management had improved
5. Performance KPIs had improved (‘on-time’ deliveries had increased, error rate had decreased)
6. Costs associated with lost work time and injury had reduced by 60%.

The Specialist OHP is continuing to work with the company to facilitate ongoing reduction in injury and lost time off work, improvement in worker wellbeing and, increase in performance and productivity.