Have you had any musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) at your facility in the past year?
Do you think you’ll have any this year?
If you’re like many industrial companies, you have recordable MSDs every year and it’s costing your company and employees.
According to the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index, overexertion injuries alone accounted for more than $50 billion in direct workers compensation costs in 2011. With indirect costs being three to twenty times the amount of direct costs, overexertion injuries account for a significant portion of the injury burden in the United States.
Because overexertion is being directly correlated to these injuries, it’s necessary for companies to develop a prevention strategy specifically focused on addressing fatigue and discomfort before it becomes a recordable injury.
Proactively Address Fatigue and Discomfort
Proactively address fatigue and discomfort with early intervention. This is a five-step process.
- Educate employees to recognize early signs of musculoskeletal disorders.
- Provide a way for employees to report early signs to supervisors, team leaders or directly to the injury prevention specialist.
- When an early report is received, be over the top positive and notify the injury prevention specialist.
- The injury prevention specialist should conduct a one-on-one early intervention consultation. During the consultation, the injury prevention specialist should evaluate the job for risk factors present and consult with the employee on a self-care program to return them back to peak health.
- The injury prevention specialist should follow up with the employee on a weekly basis until the early signs are resolved and the employee has returned to peak health.
5 Reasons Why You Need to Get Started With Early Intervention Today
We know that MSDs develop over the course of time as the result of exposure to risk factors. The earlier you address the early signs of an MSD, the greater your chances are of preventing the injury in the first place.
Consider this: The next two to three years of MSDs at your facility are in development right now. The question is what are you going to do about it? Get started today!
Here are five reasons why you should get started with early intervention today.
1. Identify and remove risk.
A fundamental concept in prevention is identifying and removing risk. By encouraging early reporting of fatigue and discomfort, you can identify the risk factors at fault and work to remove them.
2. Prevent injuries.
Removing risk factors and establishing a self-care program for the employee will improve your injury rate. Most early reports are resolved without a recordable injury!
3. It’s the right thing to do for your people.
Addressing the fatigue and discomfort of your employees is simply the right thing to do. Musculoskeletal injuries and disorders are physically and emotionally devastating and can have a major impact on the rest of the employee’s life. Prevention is always better than treatment.
4. It’s the right thing to do for your business.
Prevention is good for business. Not only can you avoid costly injuries, but you have an opportunity to turn human performance into a competitive advantage for your business.
5. Build the safety culture you’ve always wanted.
Providing a workplace athletic trainer (injury prevention specialist) to work side-by-side with your employees out on the shop floor has a dramatically positive effect on company safety culture. It shows the company’s dedication to the safety and health of every employee and that you actually care for their well-being.
Implement Early Intervention as Part of a Comprehensive Process
Early intervention is partially reactive. While it seeks to proactively address fatigue and discomfort that is present in the workplace, it does not prevent fatigue and discomfort from happening in the first place.
For this reason, it’s important to include early intervention as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy that includes a workplace ergonomics process and ongoing education and training.
- An ergonomics improvement process systematically identifies and removes ergonomic risk factors. This process will remove incompatibilities between the work and the worker, making the workstation more efficient and productive while also reducing injury risk.
- An educated and trained workforce is necessary to ensure all employees understand their role in the prevention process and have the tools and training to meet their responsibilities.
Over to you …
Do you have MSDs at your facility every year? Do you think an early intervention process would benefit you? Let us know in the comments section below!
